Okay, again there are two distinct issues. One is pretending to be for free speech when really you want to make hateful divisive comments and then complain when someone responds by calling you a racist. (Not "you" but various people I have observed.) I call that out and I love calling people on the right "snowflakes" and asking if they feel someone isn't respecting their "safe space."
Neither side has a monopoly on whining.
As far as the protests you're talking about I'm divided.
But I 100% agree with you that most people do deserve a chance to be heard. They don't deserve to force other to listen, which is a subtle distinction but really that is how I would look at things like Milo. If I'm attending Berkeley or my child is attending Berkeley and Milo is speaking in a public area where hearing him is unavoidable I think a case can be made against his right to speak. If he is inside a lecture room or auditorium where you know what you're getting into I'm all for his right to speak regardless of his content.
Like I said before if something he says is illegal, if he is making threats or inciting a riot, there are already laws against that.
And I 100% agree that it's better to not only let people speak but to encourage them to speak and then to debate their message. The people that don't want to do that are either afraid there might be some truth to what the other side is saying or they don't think they have the skills to debate. But at a prestigious university there ought to be someone capable of debating anyone regardless of the opposition's charisma or skill. Stopping them from speaking allows them to not only play the victim, the martyr, and to use this as a means to manipulate their followers potentially, and at least to give the impression that "they won't let him talk because he is exposing them."
It also allows them to control their entire narrative. They will find a way to say what they would have said at Berkeley but they will be able to control the venues they say it in, find sympathetic hosts to interview them, and work with a team of people to carefully craft every sentence. For those who lack the ability to think spontaneously or whose message is weak this may extend their career as a spokesperson for whatever cause far beyond the point that a simple series of debates might have ended it.
I have argued for the rights of people to speak on campus when I did not agree with their message. Just one actually but it was the only one I was aware of. One day after an art history class I was walking with the professor and in front of the library there was a man sitting with a folding table. He had books for sale and he was giving out booklets and flyers. I liked this professor but she was the type who had political bumperstickers forming a patchwork all over the back of her car and I always felt like it was too much. Anyway I don't know if she had dealt with this guy before or recognized his books but she actually physically took him by the collar and marched him to the parking lot. I really felt like he could have claimed it was an assault. You can't really touch someone or grab their clothes if you're not a cop.
Well he was a holocaust denier. I don't know if he was the type to say it wasn't really six million Jews that were murdered, or if he said it never happened at all. Out of curiosity I've listened to some of these theories but my grandfather was part of a force that liberated one of the camps and actually saw it. People can reconstruct history all sorts of ways, and I imagine if we have enough time left on this planet eventually people will debate whether Hitler ever actually existed. The point is that I completely agree that the thing to have done would have been to allow this man the opportunity to debate some of the history professors.
He actually had a little crowd of about twenty people listening when we walked up.
I told her that I thought he should be able to speak depending on what the actual rules were. I know you can't just roll up to a school and start having a nazi rally but in the very short time I got to form an impression of him I believe he was a lot more subtle than that.
I think it's fair to suspect the motives of a person who has taken the time to research and publish a book claiming the holocaust never happened but I'm not a mind reader and I'm not sure motives matter when discussing the veracity of a belief.
So I'm not against free speech regardless of which side of the aisle I may be on. I used to vote for the Democrats but they abandoned me and anyone who thinks I support Hillary or Obama just because I think Trump is dangerous reality show clown who is in way over his head is just making assumptions based on their own limited Belief System.
Like I said at the start though if the right simply wants the right to be offensive and to shut up anyone who is offended.
If the right believed in free speech peaceful student protests that end with the police pepper spraying students as they sit passively would have also triggered them. If the right believed in free speech they wouldn't be running over protesters at Black Lives Matter events and wouldn't be so triggered that they find the phrase "Black Lives Matter" to be offensive.
Your side has its own snowflakes.
Whenever someone starts using that rhetoric now I just think they're a clown. I am a Social Justice Warrior. Aren't you? Shouldn't we all be? Are we against social justice? Are we for inequality?
I love to flip those terms and f*** with those people because most of them have been given a small toolkit to work with and if they encounter any situation outside of their expectations they start flailing and reveal themselves to be really unable to sell their rhetoric.
Enjoy your weekend.
