Freedom of speech?

[Bob001]

It doesn't matter. Either YOU care about free speech, in which case their right to free speech must be protected whether or not they care about it, or you don't.

Do you care care about free speech?

Define free speech, and limits thereon.

 

[thaiboxerken]

It wasn't a free speech rally. It was a hate speech rally. Let's not equivocate the two.

 

[Thermal]

It doesn't matter. Either YOU care about free speech, in which case their right to free speech must be protected whether or not they care about it, or you don't.

Do you care care about free speech?

This really is the issue in a nutshell. The Proud Pussies have a right to do what they are doing. If they welcome a throw-down, I'm sure antifa will happily oblige. And that makes it a mutual fight, all clean and have at it, kids.

Jack O' Anderson was retreating, and still took a beating. Not cool. Cowardly, even. There's a fine line to toe between squaring off fairly and being the larger criminal.

 

[Thermal]

I have no additional information. But since the guy was an organizer of and speaker at the event, it seems to me well within the realm of probability that the guy said stuff that pissed other people off, one more so than the others.

Within the realm of possibility? of course. Likely even. But not factual, as you presented it.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Define free speech, and limits thereon.

"Anything the left hates" is Free Speech that Zigg will trip overhimself to die defending, even if it includes Nazis and Racists Extremists.

 

[Bob001]

.....
Jack O' Anderson was retreating, and still took a beating. Not cool. Cowardly, even. There's a fine line to toe between squaring off fairly and being the larger criminal.

Look, I'd be happy to see the guy arrested and prosecuted for assault. If he can be identified that can still happen. But it's one guy and one punch. It just has nothing to do with broader issues of free speech, especially when the guy promoting "free speech" is associated with purveyors of the vilest hate.

.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

This really is the issue in a nutshell. The Proud Pussies have a right to do what they are doing. If they welcome a throw-down, I'm sure antifa will happily oblige. And that makes it a mutual fight, all clean and have at it, kids.

Jack O' Anderson was retreating, and still took a beating. Not cool. Cowardly, even. There's a fine line to toe between squaring off fairly and being the larger criminal.

If Proud Boys want a stand up fight, they can join a boxing gym. Anderson would have all his teeth if he stayed home, or even if he stayed behind the barricades the PD set up for him to hide behind.

 

[Ziggurat]

Define free speech, and limits thereon.

The limits have already been well established in supreme court cases. Threats of violence or other illegal actions are not protected. Defamation is not protected. Fraudulent commercial speech is not protected. I'm not taking any different position on this than is already the norm.

 

[Ziggurat]

It wasn't a free speech rally. It was a hate speech rally. Let's not equivocate the two.

There is no legal category of "hate speech". It doesn't exist. And it doesn't matter if it wasn't a free speech rally. You have a free speech right regardless.

 

[phiwum]

Also we all get that "OH LORDY BE THEY BE TRYING TO SILENCE ME!" is a biiiiiig part of a lot of these people's personas right? Like there's a reason they don't want to talk in situation where people aren't going try to punch them in their stupid mouths.

It's half martyrdom, half attention seeking, with a sprinkling of "inviting the exact pedantic discussion we're having now" on it.

The Mammy caricature is a little hard to explain here.

 

[Cavemonster]

Actually, if they did that they would place themselves at a tremendous disadvantage against competitors who didn't do that, and maybe that would be a good thing. Observers across the political spectrum contend that Facebook, Google, Twitter etc. have way too much unelected, unregulated political power.



Actually, a consumer boycott is a legitimate tactic. When corporations promote political views that you don't like, you don't have to buy their products and services and you can persuade others to do the same. I'd love to see somebody bankrupt Hobby Lobby. You won't be buying Aunt Jemima syrup anymore. Corporations spend billions of dollars lobbying for favorable legislation, donating to political candidates and promoting themselves; a boycott is one of the few tools available to ordinary people.

Surely you have the level of imagination to conceive of a situation where non-government actors could successfully crush public discussion of an unpopular idea and it would be a bad thing?

Yes, corporations limiting speech POTENTIALLY open themselves up to competition, but if the case is such that they have a massive amount of power and market share, and the people who care about expressing that opinion aren't a major market group, the likelihood of success is low.

Yes, boycott is a legitimate tactic, but surely you can imagine a level at which it isn't ok.

Let's take ourselves back in time to a point at which homosexuality was condemned by the majority in this country. There was no law against a TV show having a positive gay character, or someone writing an op ed about how much they wanted to marry their same sex partner. But there was a social system of chilling effects, social and economic consequences that kept people in the closet and kept the subject out of the public discourse.

Do you believe that there was nothing at all objectionable about that environement?

 

[Ziggurat]

"Anything the left hates" is Free Speech that Zigg will trip overhimself to die defending, even if it includes Nazis and Racists Extremists.

If "free speech" only includes speech you like, it isn't actually free speech. The ACLU defending actual Nazis (and not just people called Nazis) right to free speech used to be understood as a principled stance in defense of liberal values. Sadly, liberals have largely abandoned free speech.

The reason you don't see me defending liberal freedom of speech against conservatives all the time is that liberal freedom of speech isn't really under assault from conservatives. If it was, I would.

 

[Meadmaker]

Look, I'd be happy to see the guy arrested and prosecuted for assault. If he can be identified that can still happen. But it's one guy and one punch.
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Plus a mob tearing at barricades and throwing bottles at a stage.

Three policemen were injured. Another rally participant was hauled off in an ambulance with some sort of leg injury. I don't think it was "one guy". (And even that "one guy" threw more than "one punch".)

 

[Thermal]

Look, I'd be happy to see the guy arrested and prosecuted for assault. If he can be identified that can still happen. But it's one guy and one punch. It just has nothing to do with broader issues of free speech, especially when the guy promoting "free speech" is associated with purveyors of the vilest hate.

.

Well, we're staggering back to the OP. That's a good thing.

I think it does apply to the broader issue of Free Speech. Should people with unpopular opinions be afraid to speak them in the USA, for fear of a street beating or mob attack? What if the mob is wrong? It has happened already (Portland flag dude and others).

Freedom of Speech is a social expectation in the States, as well as a governmental protection.

 

[Thermal]

The Mammy caricature is a little hard to explain here.

Racism is totes cool if you pose as one of the Good Ones.

 

[Suddenly]

It wasn't a free speech rally. It was a hate speech rally. Let's not equivocate the two.

That may be generous. I'm dubious that the word "speech" belongs in the second sentence.

Which is the point. They want this to be about viewpoint discrimination. Which for it to be that it has to be a speech issue.

It seems more an assemblage issue. Showing up as a group when a leader has described it in terms of "all we're going to be doing now is beating the living **** out of all the people trying to stop us" isn't the stuff of peaceful assembly protected by the first amendment.

Which gets into a whole morass except for the idea that the antifa aren't interfering with free speech as much as they are interfering with an unruly mob of dubious legality.

 

[phiwum]

At the time of the last post, I hadn't yet read ST's latest contributions about the connections with the Proud Boys. So, now I at least get what's going on a little bit better, and who these people were.


A pox on all their houses, if you ask me, but I still don't condone the violence. Nothing good comes out of it. A bunch of yahoos say they are going to hold a rally, and before you know it there's this big bill for police and ambulance services, and a couple of people go to the hospital. It's just dumb. No one wins except the dentist.

Exactly.

The Proud Boys are despicable, but unless there is some important context missing from that video, this fella was attacked without justification. Even if they were on the street shouting that this or that minority group is scum, the attack wouldn't be justified. Unless they were engaging in violence or threatening imminent violence, there's no justification for physical violence.

Call them out, counterprotest, etc., but don't stoop to the same politically motivated violence that they advocate.

Now, far as I saw, there was one miscreant attacking Anderson, not the counterprotestors as a whole. Thus, I'm not arguing that anyone other than the one throwing a punch is to blame.

I'm not saying that no one else is to blame either, since this short video is a snapshot and there's a lot that could be missing. Could be lots of counterprotestors were behaving badly, could also be that some of the protestors were behaving very badly and giving some justification for the violence. But, given what the video shows, I'd say the attack was unwarranted and the fact that the Proud Boys have a hateful and terrible record really doesn't justify the attack. At best, it makes it unlawful vigilante justice, which we could really do without.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Well, we're staggering back to the OP. That's a good thing.

I think it does apply to the broader issue of Free Speech. Should people with unpopular opinions be afraid to speak them in the USA, for fear of a street beating or mob attack? What if the mob is wrong? It has happened already (Portland flag dude and others).

Freedom of Speech is a social expectation in the States, as well as a governmental protection.

If the "unpopular opinion" is that they are a Proud Boy that is there to intimidate the community, knocking their teeth out is a good thing.

I don't celebrate that this is where we are in this country. The police have abdicated their responsibility by condoning right wing violence. Fascist groups, like the Proud Boys, have taken advantage of this permissiveness to engage in brutal violent intimidation. There are no good answers here because the state has given the green light to extrajudicial violence.

In that context, it's better if the fash lose.

A similar right wing event that wasn't a Proud Boy/Patriot Prayer fash rally would not have elicited the same level of response. Nobody got their teeth knocked out because of a dispute over twitter policy.

 

[JoeMorgue]

If "free speech" only includes speech you like, it isn't actually free speech.

And if the only time you get all worked up about "Mah free speech!" is when hatred is involved, you are defending the hatred, not the free speech.

Again one day I'll be as happy as "Free Speech Advocate" when they get to defend Nazis.

 

[phiwum]

Look, I'd be happy to see the guy arrested and prosecuted for assault. If he can be identified that can still happen. But it's one guy and one punch. It just has nothing to do with broader issues of free speech, especially when the guy promoting "free speech" is associated with purveyors of the vilest hate.

.

I agree that it's just one guy and not a broader issue, but for the fact that some have said who cares? It's just a nazi!

The reaction here bothers me more than the fact that one guy threw a punch at another guy. I don't know Anderson and so it's conceivable he is a literal nazi, calling for violence against others, but I don't think this is the right reaction. There may well be a sense in which he deserves a smackdown, but that doesn't make smacking him down right or acceptable.