You also don't need to believe "the press" to know how much we need it. I only take news from Substackers but i don't gobble credulously. I sip, throw salt over the shoulder and seek alternative views. I strain at news gnats to form opinion of current events.
Is Mahmoud Khalil being deported for "speech" or is he being deported for being the ringleader of a hate mob of permanent "activists" who were violating the rights of Jewish students at Columbia (menacing and harassment) and for helping create an ugly environment of intimidation?
Chanting "Globalize the Intifada" more or less means: attack any Jew/Zionist wherever you find them, certainly making Columbia less than a safe space and opening it up to civil rights violations, which they subsequently admitted.
His is an interesting wedge case and a perfect example of the paradox of tolerance. If you read the writings of the org he led, CUAD (Columbia University Apartheid Divest) sounds like a Hamas PR Dept: they loved 10/7 and want more, lionize every "martyr" killed by the IDF no matter how many murders they committed, and are anti-Israel and anti-America to the point of derangement.
This for me raised 2 questions: 1) Would we tolerate a foreigner on a visa coming to our universities if he aimed this level of vitriol and hostility against any other minority group? and 2) why would you come to a foreign country, devote your time there to denouncing this country in the most florid terms, then play victim of oppression when the country you hate decides to pull your visa? (I would deport him just for being an entitled jackass:))
I'm just not sure this is a speech issue. Jew hate is a particularly potent form of social poison, it has already warped our politics and discourse, so does someone from elsewhere have the RIGHT to push it here sans consequence? Don't we have enough of our own and no need to import more? Does a sane country allow this based on the idea of "free speech" (however toxic) or does a sane country deport people here on visas who violate the rights of our citizens and who weaponize our freedoms against us?
I almost sort of see both sides, but I will admit a bias: CUAD is an obvious hate org, none of this would have been tolerated if the target were blacks or gays, and Khalil is a poster boy for radical ingratitude who demands a level of sympathy and charity he's never once extended to Jews.
Where do we draw the line on tolerating the intolerant? is always a hard question to answer.
Freedom of assembly, protest, and speech. I regard “from the river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada” as despicable and clearly genocidal. I also consider people who deny this either stupid or liars. But it’s still speech. Far worse than that can be said, and is protected. One of the tests of being principled on freedom of expression is whether you support it for people you dislike saying things you dislike.
—"One of the tests of being principled on freedom of expression is whether you support it for people you dislike saying things you dislike."
I do agree with this, yet at the same time I remain stuck on the "paradox of tolerance" issue: Khalil is not an American citizen, thus doesn't have all the same full rights as an American citizen; his words were not just hateful and menacing, but his org led mobs who initimidated Jewish students, took over buildings and harassed staff, and built an encampment that was ipso facto a provocation of Jewish students—and many of these are civil rights violations that Columbia admitted to (and admitted to ignoring.) This I think moves this dispute beyond the realm of pure speech.
I guess mine is the "The Constitution is not a suicide pact" argument. Yes, "Freedom of assembly, protest, and speech" are sacred but are they more sacred than the health of the nation and the safety of its citizens? It does seem like a pretty reckless precedent to set that once someone arrives here, they can be the ringleader of a hate movement that menaces American Jews and then can hide behind rights they never themselves honor (nor do their home countries or the people they agitate on behalf of).
Also, to move out of the realm of principled debate and into the context of campus culture (and liberal culture in general): we've spent the past decade watching people being denounced and defenstrated for old tweets, clumsy jokes, "misgendering", political affiliations etc (even, or especially, on campus), where the feelings and "safety" of certain minority groups clearly trumped "Freedom of assembly, protest, and speech", yet when Jews were menaced by mobs, what our universities and their allies said to them was: Free speech! It was sure odd timing for them to return to principles and wouldn't have been done if Khalil was in the KKK.
From day one, Trump the politician has used shock and outrage to draw attention where it would never otherwise be drawn. The shock and outrage are generally not ethical on his part, but they've been tolerated by people with a "Flight 93 election" mindset, and even those of us who are sticklers for principle are forced to admit that Trump beats the alternative by a good margin.
But the question we must answer is "What comes next?"
The First Amendment is not needed for speech or reporting that is inoffensive. It was created to protect expressions that offend someone, someone with power, someone like the President. With very few, very narrow exceptions, the press is and should be free to publish facts, analyses, and opinions with which others (particularly in government) disagree and which they find offensive - even if the facts, analyses, and opinions are incorrect, misleading, or "fake news".
Someone might want to speak to the President about wasting political capital on foolish fights he cannot win or that benefit no one, whether it's with the press, with our neighbors to the north, or cartographers.
Autonomous fourth estate? What is meant by that? Every publication that seeks revenue is answerable to someone, its readers. Does that affect the bias of the publication? Of course.
What if the publisher has something beside revenue in mind? That certainly doesn't remove the bias. And who is the publisher, anyway? A school newspaper is typically published by the school. It funds the costs and provides the facility. Yet some people become livid when a school attempts to censor its own 'journalists'. No problem when the NYT or any other publisher does it, but when a school does it, suddenly it's an imaginary first amendment issue.
The people financing that school newspaper are the taxpayers, so they should be able to practice the censorship. Right? I don't disagree, but that censorship in no way relates to the first amendment any more than when the NYT does it. The right to free speech does not in any way guarantee that anyone will listen, or pay to publish it.
And that brings us to the Stars and Stripes. Name a nanosecond in its existence when it was fully autonomous. Who is paying for it? Not congress, the taxpayers. Not the president, the taxpayers. Who has been ignored throughout this latest bruhaha? The taxpayers. What authority do its journalists, past and present have in deciding editorial policy? None whatsoever, just like at the NYT. Yet the taxpayers are ignored, and the journalists are heard, as if any of it is up to them.
You also don't need to believe "the press" to know how much we need it. I only take news from Substackers but i don't gobble credulously. I sip, throw salt over the shoulder and seek alternative views. I strain at news gnats to form opinion of current events.
Is Mahmoud Khalil being deported for "speech" or is he being deported for being the ringleader of a hate mob of permanent "activists" who were violating the rights of Jewish students at Columbia (menacing and harassment) and for helping create an ugly environment of intimidation?
Chanting "Globalize the Intifada" more or less means: attack any Jew/Zionist wherever you find them, certainly making Columbia less than a safe space and opening it up to civil rights violations, which they subsequently admitted.
His is an interesting wedge case and a perfect example of the paradox of tolerance. If you read the writings of the org he led, CUAD (Columbia University Apartheid Divest) sounds like a Hamas PR Dept: they loved 10/7 and want more, lionize every "martyr" killed by the IDF no matter how many murders they committed, and are anti-Israel and anti-America to the point of derangement.
This for me raised 2 questions: 1) Would we tolerate a foreigner on a visa coming to our universities if he aimed this level of vitriol and hostility against any other minority group? and 2) why would you come to a foreign country, devote your time there to denouncing this country in the most florid terms, then play victim of oppression when the country you hate decides to pull your visa? (I would deport him just for being an entitled jackass:))
I'm just not sure this is a speech issue. Jew hate is a particularly potent form of social poison, it has already warped our politics and discourse, so does someone from elsewhere have the RIGHT to push it here sans consequence? Don't we have enough of our own and no need to import more? Does a sane country allow this based on the idea of "free speech" (however toxic) or does a sane country deport people here on visas who violate the rights of our citizens and who weaponize our freedoms against us?
I almost sort of see both sides, but I will admit a bias: CUAD is an obvious hate org, none of this would have been tolerated if the target were blacks or gays, and Khalil is a poster boy for radical ingratitude who demands a level of sympathy and charity he's never once extended to Jews.
Where do we draw the line on tolerating the intolerant? is always a hard question to answer.
Thanks
Freedom of assembly, protest, and speech. I regard “from the river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada” as despicable and clearly genocidal. I also consider people who deny this either stupid or liars. But it’s still speech. Far worse than that can be said, and is protected. One of the tests of being principled on freedom of expression is whether you support it for people you dislike saying things you dislike.
—"One of the tests of being principled on freedom of expression is whether you support it for people you dislike saying things you dislike."
I do agree with this, yet at the same time I remain stuck on the "paradox of tolerance" issue: Khalil is not an American citizen, thus doesn't have all the same full rights as an American citizen; his words were not just hateful and menacing, but his org led mobs who initimidated Jewish students, took over buildings and harassed staff, and built an encampment that was ipso facto a provocation of Jewish students—and many of these are civil rights violations that Columbia admitted to (and admitted to ignoring.) This I think moves this dispute beyond the realm of pure speech.
I guess mine is the "The Constitution is not a suicide pact" argument. Yes, "Freedom of assembly, protest, and speech" are sacred but are they more sacred than the health of the nation and the safety of its citizens? It does seem like a pretty reckless precedent to set that once someone arrives here, they can be the ringleader of a hate movement that menaces American Jews and then can hide behind rights they never themselves honor (nor do their home countries or the people they agitate on behalf of).
Also, to move out of the realm of principled debate and into the context of campus culture (and liberal culture in general): we've spent the past decade watching people being denounced and defenstrated for old tweets, clumsy jokes, "misgendering", political affiliations etc (even, or especially, on campus), where the feelings and "safety" of certain minority groups clearly trumped "Freedom of assembly, protest, and speech", yet when Jews were menaced by mobs, what our universities and their allies said to them was: Free speech! It was sure odd timing for them to return to principles and wouldn't have been done if Khalil was in the KKK.
I'm sure you see what I'm getting at...
Thanks
From day one, Trump the politician has used shock and outrage to draw attention where it would never otherwise be drawn. The shock and outrage are generally not ethical on his part, but they've been tolerated by people with a "Flight 93 election" mindset, and even those of us who are sticklers for principle are forced to admit that Trump beats the alternative by a good margin.
But the question we must answer is "What comes next?"
The First Amendment is not needed for speech or reporting that is inoffensive. It was created to protect expressions that offend someone, someone with power, someone like the President. With very few, very narrow exceptions, the press is and should be free to publish facts, analyses, and opinions with which others (particularly in government) disagree and which they find offensive - even if the facts, analyses, and opinions are incorrect, misleading, or "fake news".
Someone might want to speak to the President about wasting political capital on foolish fights he cannot win or that benefit no one, whether it's with the press, with our neighbors to the north, or cartographers.
Autonomous fourth estate? What is meant by that? Every publication that seeks revenue is answerable to someone, its readers. Does that affect the bias of the publication? Of course.
What if the publisher has something beside revenue in mind? That certainly doesn't remove the bias. And who is the publisher, anyway? A school newspaper is typically published by the school. It funds the costs and provides the facility. Yet some people become livid when a school attempts to censor its own 'journalists'. No problem when the NYT or any other publisher does it, but when a school does it, suddenly it's an imaginary first amendment issue.
The people financing that school newspaper are the taxpayers, so they should be able to practice the censorship. Right? I don't disagree, but that censorship in no way relates to the first amendment any more than when the NYT does it. The right to free speech does not in any way guarantee that anyone will listen, or pay to publish it.
And that brings us to the Stars and Stripes. Name a nanosecond in its existence when it was fully autonomous. Who is paying for it? Not congress, the taxpayers. Not the president, the taxpayers. Who has been ignored throughout this latest bruhaha? The taxpayers. What authority do its journalists, past and present have in deciding editorial policy? None whatsoever, just like at the NYT. Yet the taxpayers are ignored, and the journalists are heard, as if any of it is up to them.
From the government.