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Comment by jwuphysics | Hacker News Reader

I hadn't heard of this organization but their headline certainly didn't pass the sniff test.

From their Wikipedia page: > In 2017, FIRE was listed as one of the sponsors of the conservative campus group Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit, according to tax records.

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Would you apply this same logic to a group like Occupy Democrats? It seems like a very poor litmus test to immediately be dismissive of someone's view because of an association with (what seems to be) a political party you don't like.

Yes, especially when it comes to a "mainstream" Democratic Party organization like Occupy.

I mistrust "conservatism" a bit more than whatever the mainstream Democratic Party is, but only a bit. Both generally seem to be disingenuous and concerned more with the appearance of having principles than with actually having principles.

So political parties purport to have principles? That’s a very weird way to look at them. Fundamentally, political parties are groups of people that have just enough in common to work together. There’s general themes, but it doesn’t make sense to ascribe to them principles.

Principles have to live in a constitution now?

1) Conservatism isn't a political party as such, 2) conservatives in particular seem to be very big on emphasizing their strong principles and adherence thereto... as long as it doesn't inconvenience them or expose them to icky things like new ideas or social progress.

Could you not argue the same thing about progressives? They are very big on the emphasis of so-called "social progress" even when they don't do it themselves. Most famously I could argue that this entire push for climate change by the progressives has done nearly nothing to stop the actual producers of it (the 1%) and instead puts yet another burden on the everyman. These limousine liberals are the party-equivalent of the very people you are saying exist exclusively in the conservative parties.

Both dogmas have their place. The problem we have isn't that the two exist, it's that there's now a gap between them you can measure in AUs. Some ideas are better expressed by conservatism. That is, keeping the status quo. Some ideas are best expressed with progressivism. Right now the two parties are being turned in tribes by the media (twitter especially in this example) which benefits absolutely no one but the people who actually hold the power. As for democrats and republicans, it's my opinion they play on the same team.

Your reply strikes me as sitting further on the edges of the horseshoe than you might realize.

Which conservatives? Trump populists? Bush neocons? Buchanan paleocons? Reaganites?

There is a massive difference between what some political parties openly claim they stand behind, and their actual record of votes and policy outcomes.

Yes, absolutely. I'm far left by most people's standards and Occupy Democrats is trash. I would say it's different from TPUSA insofar as OD is more of an online brand than an organization but I can think of many other examples.

Would be nice if we could judge this individually on its merits (or lack thereof), instead of automatically disbelieving (or for that matter automatically believing) based on what we think of the org.

I dont know the organization but fwiw they also seem to be supporting this: https://www.thefire.org/fire-urges-twitter-carnegie-mellon-n...

Framing it as "support" is extremely disingenuous.

You can defend someone's right to say something offensive without actually being in support or agreement with said statement.

Is that true? Didn't the ACLU defend the speech of Neo Nazis?

I'm not sure I understand your question. Is what true? I don't think the ACLU actually supported the Nazis in Skokie or their message. But sometimes people miss the forest for the trees with that case. In oder to defend your own rights, you have to defend everyone else's rights too. First they came...

But the ACLU has changed quite a bit since those days it seems. It's my understanding that they no longer take the "sunlight is the best disinfectant" approach to free speech and the free and open exchange of ideas.

From what I’ve read, seen, and experienced first hand, they seem like a reputable organization to me.

Life must be easy for you, when you give yourself such easy ways to avoid contemplating views you disagree with.

This is like a comedy routine.

Free thinker #1: Check out Wikipedia on FIRE (but I hope you don't, so I won't provide the link)

Free thinker #2: Don't be closed minded and read Wikipedia! (I too won't provide the link)

So I will do it, said the little red hen. (Are you using reverse psychology on me?)

I had to poke through a fair amount of "disambiguation" to find it, as FIRE is such a common name/acronym.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_Individual_Righ...

What seems to me relevant context is that originally it was founded by Harvard faculty, one of whom was an ACLU board member in Massachusetts, but may have drifted/evolved as funding is allegedly coming more and more from right wing and (faux?) libertarian sources.

Also, like practically everyone, it seems to be engaging in mission creep, expanding from E=education to E=expression.

But in fairness, college and college campuses have become such litmus tests of which side you are on in the culture wars, that that is probably driving them to widen their focus if they have any desire to preserve a non-partisan image.

I recommend reading the "Cases" section.

One of the most recent things they have allegedly done is:

`FIRE announced a lawsuit challenging Florida’s "Stop Woke Act"'

I'm not convinced they are pure and non-partisan and uncorrupted, but after skimming the list of controversies they have been involved in, they don't seem too transparently partisan.

They seem to have defended an organization threatened with a defamation lawsuit for criticizing electro-shock therapy.

Then read it the way you'd read a blog post by random person posted to HN.

We live in an age in which social trust is declining, so we should probably be skeptical of even the more "reputable" sources.

The next article that I saw on that site defended a cmu professor who said negative things about the Queen on the day of her death. This professor is as far left as you get.

So they once dealt with someone you dislike?

For an organization purporting to support academic freedom, that they have funded or worked with Turning Point USA, an organization which literally runs a ‘watch list’ of academics whose political views they disagree with, seems relevant to assessing their true goals, yes.

Read the link a bit above this one about how the ACLU is praising this group. Free speech can be problematic in this age of disinformation and media manipulation, but it's also under attack from the left. FIRE seems non-partisan and sincere.

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