4 ms·

Correct, free speech doesn't mean you should give everyone a free platform, especially at a school that you pay to attend!

seiferteric 3y ago
Sure but inviting controversial speakers used to be seen as valuable to challenge ones beliefs on the off chance you might actually be wrong about something. Now it seems that thought never crosses their minds.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >valuable to challenge ones beliefs Did US colleges bring in a lot of Pro-vietnam speakers? If you want a marketplace of ideas, you have to be willing to accept that the market sometimes rejects ideas, good or not, for the right reasons or not. Any market can warp, for any length of time. That's like a fundamental flaw of markets. In financial markets we try to regulate away the negative and flawed parts of market theory, occasionally succeeding. Should we regulate the free marketplace of ideas? Free speech doesn't mean everyone listens to you. Free speech means the government doesn't put you in jail for saying something. There's this weird claim that you can somehow define "free speech" to be more applicable than just limiting government, but if you limit my right to react to speech in any way, how is that freedom? If I react by never associating with you ever again, and telling all my friends that you are an asshole, and should be avoided at all costs, and they listen and tell their friends because they trust my opinion, and on and on until nobody likes you and nobody wants to listen to your speech, who's rights were violated? "Freedom of speech" should not mean "I owe you attention"
  - seiferteric 3y ago
    > Free speech doesn't mean everyone listens to you. The article is mainly about speakers on campuses. No one is forcing you to attend a speech. The issue is that people show up anyway to try and shut it down. That is a problem. I am struggling to understand who is forcing anyone to listen to anything?
- roflyear 3y ago
  The issue today is it is rare that these speakers are operating in good faith. It's painfully obvious to many that many "controversial" speakers on both sides of the political aisle are only intentionally being controversial, rather than holding radical beliefs that happen to be controversial. They're trolls, basically.
smsm42 3y ago
Paying to attend a school does not mean owning the school. People who want to hear the speaker also paid to attend, but somehow their money is not as green. Unless somebody promised them when they paid that they will never ever hear a word that may disturb them or be in the vicinity of a person who they disagree with - which I am sure not even the most woke college ever would be willing to put in writing - paying for education does not mean having a veto on everything happening on campus.

seiferteric 3y ago

Sure but inviting controversial speakers used to be seen as valuable to challenge ones beliefs on the off chance you might actually be wrong about something. Now it seems that thought never crosses their minds.

mrguyorama 3y ago
>valuable to challenge ones beliefs Did US colleges bring in a lot of Pro-vietnam speakers? If you want a marketplace of ideas, you have to be willing to accept that the market sometimes rejects ideas, good or not, for the right reasons or not. Any market can warp, for any length of time. That's like a fundamental flaw of markets. In financial markets we try to regulate away the negative and flawed parts of market theory, occasionally succeeding. Should we regulate the free marketplace of ideas? Free speech doesn't mean everyone listens to you. Free speech means the government doesn't put you in jail for saying something. There's this weird claim that you can somehow define "free speech" to be more applicable than just limiting government, but if you limit my right to react to speech in any way, how is that freedom? If I react by never associating with you ever again, and telling all my friends that you are an asshole, and should be avoided at all costs, and they listen and tell their friends because they trust my opinion, and on and on until nobody likes you and nobody wants to listen to your speech, who's rights were violated? "Freedom of speech" should not mean "I owe you attention"
- seiferteric 3y ago
  > Free speech doesn't mean everyone listens to you. The article is mainly about speakers on campuses. No one is forcing you to attend a speech. The issue is that people show up anyway to try and shut it down. That is a problem. I am struggling to understand who is forcing anyone to listen to anything?
roflyear 3y ago
The issue today is it is rare that these speakers are operating in good faith. It's painfully obvious to many that many "controversial" speakers on both sides of the political aisle are only intentionally being controversial, rather than holding radical beliefs that happen to be controversial. They're trolls, basically.

smsm42 3y ago

Paying to attend a school does not mean owning the school. People who want to hear the speaker also paid to attend, but somehow their money is not as green. Unless somebody promised them when they paid that they will never ever hear a word that may disturb them or be in the vicinity of a person who they disagree with - which I am sure not even the most woke college ever would be willing to put in writing - paying for education does not mean having a veto on everything happening on campus.