Yes, it is a flaw of rights-based arguments that they cannot be grasped by the morally depraved. For them, we must fall back on the pragmatic arguments about how censorship is a dangerous concept, slippery slope, etc.

I'm satisfied with the line drawn by Brandenburg v Ohio.

From a legal standpoint? Sure. But I can't like go and call my boss a gay abomination and expect not to get fired because of FREE SPEECH. By the same token it seems reasonable to have similar speech restrictions on a college campus as well.

Denying the priority of freedom of speech is not an indicator of moral depravity. There are also pragmatic arguments regarding limits to freedom of speech, these arguments often lead to widely agreed to restrictions on that right.

That said claims in support of free speech, whether rights based or pragmatic are normative claims and are subject to the morally depraved failing to grasp them.

True although the reason the students are rightly mocked is that no one is pelting them with hate speech. Like the professor who tried to tell students that they should talk to each other about Halloween costumes and why they find them offensive... she was hoping to open a dialogue about cultural appropriation and build some understanding. Her point was that not everything is best served by creating some new rule set down from the campus administration.

No one in their right mind would be calling for a professor's dismissal after that, sorry, that's not hate speech. It's just overly-sensitive young people who are not going to be prepared for the real world if that is how they approach things they disagree with. They deserved to be mocked and lol at people saying "hey those kids just wanted safe spaces, what's the big deal?"

I wouldn't call you morally depraved for not getting the argument about the right not to be subjected to hate speech.

Censorship is not a dangerous concept. Concepts are very rarely dangerous.

The students that were dressing up like Syrian refugees for Halloween were calling for her dismissal iirc. Not the offended ones. I may be thinking of another case.

Edit: Never mind I was thinking of something else.

How does the thread feel about Germany's ban on Nazi sympathizing? I get why they did it, but I don't think it's something the US should implement. Are there people ITT who want legal restrictions on hate speech, beyond expulsion/firing? Fines, jail time?

The basic idea of a safe space is nothing new (clubs, support groups, counselors office), and taking issue with it would be idiotic. What right wingers lose their minds over is when students want their classes, or the whole campus, to be safe spaces free from not only hate speech, but much more benign offenses. No doubt they blow it way out of proportion, but there are definitely examples of students being sensitive beyond what could be considered reasonable.

The ban on Nazi symbology and rhetoric was an emergency response to an emergency situation:

"What do we do right after WWII with a country full of former Nazis that literally committed mass murder?"


It's the sort of one-off situation that should not be a precedent for our behavior in normal times, like Lincoln's suspension of habeus corpus in the middle of a Civil War.


It made perfect sense when it was instituted and helped do the job it was intended to do. That is not the same as saying we should ban Nazi symbology and rhetoric everywhere for all time, as odious as it is. Nor that we should ban other hate speech, as odious as it is.

Maybe, but what you're saying amounts to making colleges safe spaces where you are allowed to talk without facing the consequences like we have in the real world. Not sure we should baby college kids to that extent..... full professors maybe.

I think the Left in favor of speech codes has far more in common with the Religious Right than they'd like.


They have both moved from wanting to have the freedom to do things themselves to wanting the power to police what other people do or say. There is no right "not to be disagreed with" or "not to be criticized", just as there is no right to force other people to abide by your religion.


One of the opinions that kept Bork off the Supreme Court was his idiotic idea that simply knowing a behavior was taking place caused real harm to those people who considered it to be immoral. This would have given unlimited license to the govt to interfere in everyone's life forever.


I think it's equally idiotic to decide the govt should have the power to tell people what they're allowed to say (and that, essentially, is what laws like those in the UK assert the right to do).

Where does that leave extreme examples like inciting racial hatred?

Ù Giving rape victims an option to not read books that depict rape and just read a different book sounds pretty civil for anyone with a conscience.

Like half the class isn't reading the book anyway, if one of the 15 kids who actually wanted to do the work wants to read something else you can work something out.

Incitement to violence is a crime and should remain so.


Incitement to hatred should be roundly mocked but not illegal.

Everyone needs the option then. Victims shouldn't have to 'come out'.

and what about prohibitions on hateful rape related speech being aimed at them? Do they have to put up with that?

That example is a perfect one where common sense should hold sway we should make an accommodation.


But what of Things Fall Apart and The Great Gatsby? We live in a world with ethnic conflict that sometimes explodes into violence and with misogyny & racism. Should we ignore this?


Should we never teach books that make people uncomfortable?

Well let's be clear. Just because literally one moron at Rutgers proposed flagging Gatsby doesn't mean anything actually came out of it. The people who run colleges aren't morons.

Chez, that's the whole point. Everyone does have the option! But basically no one exercises it. It's a thing that happens maybe a handful of times a year when there are millions of cases. Yet, people like FoldnDark lose their collective **** about these 0.001% of people.

Ponied slightly by keed

They should be embarrassed to be teaching Gatsby at the college level, but leaving that aside, no one is actually stopping profs from assigning it. Some students complained about it and made ridiculous demands, and that should certainly be mocked, but at the end of the day, it was just a fringe SJW element that changed nothing.

Despite this, people are tossing around wild stories of banned books and students being silenced. It's hard to take any of this seriously when we're give no concrete examples of SJWs gone amock.

Yeah, moron says something and is largely ignored. Seems like a fully functioning marketplace of ideas.

Uh oh, cheezelawg/FoldnRape tag teaming this thread against its will.

Someone needs to follow the breadcrumbs back to their smp safe space

Well it's good to see so many of you reject those "isolated" incidents. I guess it follows now you would agree that if those sorts of incidents we're becoming more regular, that could be an issue worth considering. Say, if you were to read one of the hundreds of articles by liberal and conservative columnists alike citing examples and concerns from professors, students, activists, comedians, presidents:

http://righteousmind.com/obama-speak...ling-campuses/

You are most definitely triggered right now.

Bro no one is going to read hundreds of articles written by morons on a subject that is trivial. What are some of the bad things that you think have happened because of SAFE SPACES? Oh right nothing

How about you try just reading one?