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Does the Trump Administration believe in free speech or its own version of compelled speech and cancel culture?

angrysoba

Philosophile
angrysoba
Joined
Dec 8, 2009
Messages
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Location
Osaka, Japan
One of the big issues in the last decade or so has been so-called “cancel culture” which usually took the form of people being compelled to use particular shibboleths or refrain from inflammatory speech or else face the wrath of authority figures or social media opprobrium.

In some cases, it meant social media campaigns against people who made tasteless jokes on social media - the lady who joked about not getting AIDS because she was white, for example. Or it might be related to teachers or lecturers made to feel uncomfortable in their workplaces etc…

But now, the boot is predictably on the other foot, and it seems to be less in the mood for principle and more in the mood for revenge.

Donald J Trump has made a series of executive orders and a flurry of lawsuits aimed at institutions and media organizations who he says has wronged him or who will not bend to his will.

Here is a short list of examples:

* suing CBS for “election interference” for perfectly normal editing a Kamala Harris interview
* threatening to throw Mark Zuckerberg in jail for life if he “interferes” with an election.
* suing Ann Seltzer for “election interference” which amounts to nothing more than producing a poll whose numbers were not favourable to him.
* preventing AP from attending Oval Office press conferences for not saying the right words (“Gulf of America”)
* threatening to withdraw public funding from universities that allow “illegal protests”
* withdrawing public funding from Columbia University for its allowing of “illegal protests”
* arresting a Palestinian student protester for protesting against Israel’s conduct in Gaza and threatening to revoke his green card and having him deported.
* literally dictating what language is permissible by making English the official language and withdrawing funding and requirements for non-English language assistance.

Is this not a deliberate chilling or free speech? Will we see some ideological consistency regarding free speech here (it looks like FIRE, to its credit, is doing so.)

Anyway, we wait in joyful hope and anticipation for people to read their John Stuart Mill and go “ah! I get it.”

Please debate freely without fear!
 
There is a case in New York where a guy, in the aftermath of the United Healthcare shooting, decided to make and sell a deck of cards with the top CEOs in the US and why their actions suggest that they are really bad persons.
Bad Taste?
absolutely.
covered by 1st amendment?
totally.

But the NY Post made a big deal about it, the Cops and FBI showed up, the cards got intercepted before he could take delivery of them, all his social media was cancelled, as was all his banking - with no real explanation.
It's as perfect a case of Cancelling because of a difference of opinion as you can get.

but, of course, no one of the supposed Free Speech Absolutists would have say anything about this.
 
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I’ve just seen this Substack by Dan Moynihan which says pretty much what I said but much better and with even more examples of the chilling effect on free speech that Donald Trump and Elon Musk have been engendering.

The crude insults and flagrant lack of concern for truth when directed at enemies and overt threats of deportation or firing or even of physical harm are impossible to ignore.

open.substack.com

Real chilling effects

A extraordinary pattern of government censorship and threats to speech
open.substack.com open.substack.com
 
angrysoba said:
One of the big issues in the last decade or so has been so-called “cancel culture” which usually took the form of people being compelled to use particular shibboleths or refrain from inflammatory speech or else face the wrath of authority figures or social media opprobrium.

In some cases, it meant social media campaigns against people who made tasteless jokes on social media - the lady who joked about not getting AIDS because she was white, for example. Or it might be related to teachers or lecturers made to feel uncomfortable in their workplaces etc…

But now, the boot is predictably on the other foot, and it seems to be less in the mood for principle and more in the mood for revenge.

Donald J Trump has made a series of executive orders and a flurry of lawsuits aimed at institutions and media organizations who he says has wronged him or who will not bend to his will.

Here is a short list of examples:

* suing CBS for “election interference” for perfectly normal editing a Kamala Harris interview
* threatening to throw Mark Zuckerberg in jail for life if he “interferes” with an election.
* suing Ann Seltzer for “election interference” which amounts to nothing more than producing a poll whose numbers were not favourable to him.
* preventing AP from attending Oval Office press conferences for not saying the right words (“Gulf of America”)
* threatening to withdraw public funding from universities that allow “illegal protests”
* withdrawing public funding from Columbia University for its allowing of “illegal protests”
* arresting a Palestinian student protester for protesting against Israel’s conduct in Gaza and threatening to revoke his green card and having him deported.
* literally dictating what language is permissible by making English the official language and withdrawing funding and requirements for non-English language assistance.

Is this not a deliberate chilling or free speech? Will we see some ideological consistency regarding free speech here (it looks like FIRE, to its credit, is doing so.)

Anyway, we wait in joyful hope and anticipation for people to read their John Stuart Mill and go “ah! I get it.”

Please debate freely without fear!
Click to expand...
I don't have a problem with making English the official language...several countires have official languages, but the cutting off of funds for assiting those who do not yer know English is what I object to. Just plain stupid.
SO far his attacks on Freedom of Speech are not all that sucessful, but the are scary.
Thing is, Courage is absoultey necessary to preserve Democracy. Freedom is not free..never has been, never will be. It will always have a cost.
I know this a cliched saying but there is truth to it; It is the land of the free because it is the home of the brave.
Or, if your prefer, Churchill's saying about Courage being one of hte most important virtues, because with out it the others become useless.
 
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Other countries not only have an official language, they have multiple official languages, which makes ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ out of the administration's claim that a single official language is "at the core of a unified, cohesive society." When I lived in Switzerland years ago, they had four national languages.

In general, I don't see any good reason why a liberal democracy ought to have a national language, particularly in countries that are former colonialist projects. I don't really think there's such a thing as an "ethnic American", and if Spanish becomes one of the languages of public life...so what?

This stuff is for butt-scratching, status-seeking monkeys.
 
Armitage72 said:
Maybe "Official English" can finally establish if it's "soda" or "pop".
Click to expand...

“soft drink”

Soda here is specifically soda water, e.g., if you order a scotch and soda, doesn’t expect coke/Pepsi
(my autocorrect prefers sofa to soda, had to uncorrect it 3 times in this post)
 
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dudalb said:
Well, try making it in Australia if you don't speak English............
Click to expand...
What if I said, try making it some parts of the US without Spanish?

The point is about making a language official when there wasn't one before. The United States is a country which has a number of indigenous languages as well as a number of community languages.
 
Here in NYC, most public announcements by officialdom are available in 11 languages. I was just at the local Korean deli, and noticed this sign posted: https://www.nyc.gov/assets/dca/downloads/pdf/workers/KnowYourRightsAtWorkPoster.pdf

The only problem that making one of those "official" would solve is that some people get their special feelings hurt if one of them isn't specified as the prettiest and best language.
 
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dudalb said:
I don't have a problem with making English the official language...several countires have official languages, but the cutting off of funds for assiting those who do not yer know English is what I object to. Just plain stupid.
SO far his attacks on Freedom of Speech are not all that sucessful.
Click to expand...
Doesn't matter what official language is set. People use their own language in the privacy of their homes anyway. (Joke: When do all men speak the same language? When they trip over a chair in the dark.)

There will be an issue with accents too. For example, a workmate and I, while on a business trip to Seattle years ago, confused the heck out of our Yank hosts by conversing in Brabham-Aussie, a method of speaking Aussie slang with the mouth barely open and lips barely moving (it keeps the flies out).

The problem will come when the "English-only" USA starts to demand that other non-English-speaking countries speak English only. It will start with the insistence that only tourists and visitors who speak English will be permitted.
 
angrysoba said:
* arresting a Palestinian student protester for protesting against Israel’s conduct in Gaza and threatening to revoke his green card and having him deported.
Click to expand...
I don't see how this one can stand. Not a fan of the protests, but the right to protest is bedrock.
 
Brainster said:
I don't see how this one can stand. Not a fan of the protests, but the right to protest is bedrock.
Click to expand...

angrysoba said:
Yep.

www.thefire.org

FIRE demands answers from Trump admin officials on arrest of Mahmoud Khalil

Agents from the Department of Homeland Security arrested a lawful permanent resident who has been involved in activism related to the current conflict in Gaza.
www.thefire.org www.thefire.org
Click to expand...

Trump's response will be along the lines of: ◊◊◊◊ their First Amendment rights. I don't care about the Constitution, and I can do what I want. Throw the brown camel-◊◊◊◊◊◊ out!
 
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