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Yes, the universities which are leading the charge on suppressing the speech of students are widely known as bastions of conservative thought. /s The article i

Yes, the universities which are leading the charge on suppressing the speech of students are widely known as bastions of conservative thought. /s The article is idiotic. Yes, groups of people (corporations, in the literal sense) have begun to be recognized as having almost as much right to free speech as the individual constituents. No, that might not be perfectly ideal. Yes, at the same time (who can speak as to the causal relationship) the conservative right has embraced the first amendment somewhat more than in the past. But the real problem is not that the right has embraced 1A, it's that the so-called "liberal" left has abandoned it. The left is no longer liberal in the traditional sense; in fact, these days, it's the left which seeks to impose certain values on society by any means necessary, including the suppression of speech. "Students, prisoners, pacifists and whistle-blowers"---at least two of these, students and whistle-blowers, have been primarily attacked by the leftist university administrations and the current American executive, also on the left. I can't say as to the prisoners and pacifists, except insofar as the prisoners and pacifists are the whistle-blowers, in which case it was again the left which has trampled their first amendment rights. Those of us who might be liberals in the traditional sense are and should be increasingly disgusted by these trends.

pXMzR2A 12y ago
> "Students, prisoners, pacifists and whistle-blowers"---at least two of these, students and whistle-blowers, have been primarily attacked by the leftist university administrations and the current American executive, also on the left. What you call "left" in this argument is actually centre right. Sorry but the left barely exists in the US, compared to other nations. Your confusion is probably due to the binary party system where, interestingly, 0 = 1. Anyhow, though they share some common grounds, the left is not and cannot be "liberal". (For example, no leftist would argue for the corporatization of free speech in their right minds, as you did in your liberalist comment, excusing it as "not perfectly ideal".) For classical leftism, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism For modern leftism, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Left https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Left > leftist university administrations and the current American executive, also on the left Leftist university administrators do not exist in the US. No leftist university administrator would take an active (pro/supporting) role in a system that depends on the exploitation of adjunct faculty, the active sabotaging of unions by universities, and the overall commodification[1] of education. The current American executive is not leftist either, as demonstrated by their trend towards building a surveillance system for elitist / corporate US dictatorship. In light of the above, you are in no position to call any article "idiotic." edit: [1] http://www.randalolson.com/2014/03/29/its-impossible-to-work-your-way-through-college-nowadays-revisited-with-national-data/ http://www.randalolson.com/2014/03/29/its-impossible-to-work... is an interesting read.
- belovedeagle 12y ago
  I think you missed my point entirely. I agree that the American left is not liberal; however, they are very much still the left. Your argument is basically, "well, these people are doing some shitty things and therefore they must be on the right, because only the right does shitty things". Give me a break. If you want an "ism" which matches up most closely with the concept of "the left", you're looking for statism. And the American left is very, very much statist; they just also happen to be capitalist too. I agree that statism and true liberalism are largely opposed; however, a few decades back, the American left was somehow also very liberal. At the time, there were many influential statist visions of liberalism which were quite popular (your "New Left" link exemplifies this perfectly). So my earlier comment could be restated as pointing out that what's happening today is that people have become disillusioned with the oil-and-water mixture of statism and liberalism, and thus the true liberal elements have moved away from the left. The result is a kind of coalition between the old right and the departing liberals. But all of that was more-or-less irrelevant to explain the link. And, uh, I'm not sure what your link has to do with anything.

pXMzR2A 12y ago

> "Students, prisoners, pacifists and whistle-blowers"---at least two of these, students and whistle-blowers, have been primarily attacked by the leftist university administrations and the current American executive, also on the left. What you call "left" in this argument is actually centre right. Sorry but the left barely exists in the US, compared to other nations. Your confusion is probably due to the binary party system where, interestingly, 0 = 1. Anyhow, though they share some common grounds, the left is not and cannot be "liberal". (For example, no leftist would argue for the corporatization of free speech in their right minds, as you did in your liberalist comment, excusing it as "not perfectly ideal".) For classical leftism, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism For modern leftism, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Left https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Left > leftist university administrations and the current American executive, also on the left Leftist university administrators do not exist in the US. No leftist university administrator would take an active (pro/supporting) role in a system that depends on the exploitation of adjunct faculty, the active sabotaging of unions by universities, and the overall commodification[1] of education. The current American executive is not leftist either, as demonstrated by their trend towards building a surveillance system for elitist / corporate US dictatorship. In light of the above, you are in no position to call any article "idiotic." edit: [1] http://www.randalolson.com/2014/03/29/its-impossible-to-work-your-way-through-college-nowadays-revisited-with-national-data/ http://www.randalolson.com/2014/03/29/its-impossible-to-work... is an interesting read.

belovedeagle 12y ago
I think you missed my point entirely. I agree that the American left is not liberal; however, they are very much still the left. Your argument is basically, "well, these people are doing some shitty things and therefore they must be on the right, because only the right does shitty things". Give me a break. If you want an "ism" which matches up most closely with the concept of "the left", you're looking for statism. And the American left is very, very much statist; they just also happen to be capitalist too. I agree that statism and true liberalism are largely opposed; however, a few decades back, the American left was somehow also very liberal. At the time, there were many influential statist visions of liberalism which were quite popular (your "New Left" link exemplifies this perfectly). So my earlier comment could be restated as pointing out that what's happening today is that people have become disillusioned with the oil-and-water mixture of statism and liberalism, and thus the true liberal elements have moved away from the left. The result is a kind of coalition between the old right and the departing liberals. But all of that was more-or-less irrelevant to explain the link. And, uh, I'm not sure what your link has to do with anything.