I see mention of "free speech training"...the school should expect this to turn into a complete circus
countdown until students demand a resignation letter from the Dean also
the tide will turn one day, but the mob is going to go scorched earth first
Who cares if students are angry? They’re just students.
If they can’t behave themselves, kick them out.
Freedom of speech is also the freedom to read and the freedom to listen. Those students were acting as censors, not as protesters.
Seems like they're just pissy about the fact that the pro-LBGTQ mobs now are so much larger than their old Westboro baptist ones and such. Tragic, truly. But we want to allow those protests but think a Federal Judge needs special protection from being yelled at? He can grow some thick skin, it's just words.
I might be inclined to revisit this opinion once anyone on that side starts actually holding people like Donald Trump to any such standards of decorum. Hell, just Trump - let's just see it done with him, let's ignore all the other right-wing instigators and clowns.
Until that happens, let's not insist that one side fight with one arm behind their back when the same tactics are widely employed on the right.
Cause that's all this is: whining about decorum in the interest of gaining an edge. People trying to lay rules on top of "free speech" because they don't actually believe it's applicable universally everywhere. While simultaneously claiming it as a holy principle when convenient. "Free speech for me, not for thee." "Freedom to listen" or whatever is just editorializing; it ain't in the First Amendment. Hey, maybe we can trade - we'll add freedom to be listened to, but we'll also remove the right to bear arms outside of the military?
Note that you excuse bad behavior from Stanford Law Students because of the Westboro Baptist Church. The former are some of the most powerful people in the world. The latter are hated by everyone and taken seriously by no one.
Are law students, even at Stanford, "some of the most powerful people in the world"? I don't think so. The administrators have a lot more power on paper inside of Stanford. The federal judge has more power in the country as a whole.
I also don't particularly care as much about whether or not it's "bad" compared to how much I care about the larger political battles. Tribalism? Or pragmatism? Meh.
Westboro is just one small instance of the larger reactionary American right. They are a handy one for these purposes since their antics were somehow seen as "more acceptable" application of free speech to the right than this shouting down was. The abortion protest movement was longer, more sustained, and more violent; more recently, of course, the mob is most recognizable in screaming about election results or books in primary school libraries and such.
If that sort of mob behavior is seen as "bad" by all these "free speech" folks, why are they only making noise about it when it's against them?
And if they don't think it's bad, the morality certainly seems less settled than you say it is.
If you're looking for tribalism, consider some more how the complaints about "the woke mob" so common in today's conversation are so one-directional in terms of which mob they target.
Is it good?
No, it's the principle of "I don’t agree with what you say but I will defend your right to say it."
The current trend is, instead: "Our voice has been silenced in the past, but now we will silence them!"
I don't believe that's actually true of anyone in power in the Republican party or evangelical church. It's just a line they trot out for PR. Their actions demonstrate that they are perfectly willing to benefit from mobs, intimidation, threats, and violence for their own ends.
> The current trend is, instead: "Our voice has been silenced in the past, but now we will silence them!"
Yes - the people who were silencing those voices are now claiming to support "I don’t agree with what you say but I will defend your right to say it." - it's obviously bullshit since they were doing the silencing.
I agree that there are many hypocrites out there who silence others every day but now clutch their pearls on this case.
But my point was: the Stanford hecklers were wrong to drown out the Judge's speech, regardless of how his rulings or viewpoints impact them. I see a trend of people who have been historically marginalized, now feel empowered to silence others.
What are you proposing here exactly? Drop all the rules until everyone behaves?
So back when I was in a far-right school, they had a clever trick for making sure speakers with different views didn't get heckled: they didn't invite them in the first place. Why expose your flock to a literal agent of evil, after all.
It's clever! You avoid the ugly scene by removing even the ability for "free speech" you don't like!
So in a country where that level of indoctrination and control of information is common and uncontroversial - indeed, often lobbied for through looser restrictions around charter and private schools and opposition to public schools - why am I supposed to be upset with the students at Stanford disagreeing with others and with administrators over who needs help spreading their views? Let's paint the full picture, instead.
Currently in the US one side is ruthless and result-oriented and the other is prone to tripping over their own feet PR-wise in ways that the other party/church doesn't get called out on. The younger people on the left have seen that, and are bringing some of the same methods into their toolbox. And the right has the balls to call them out on it?
I posit to you that pretense, and I am not really joking, is one the few things that is keeping this civilization going. I personally would like the pretense to go on.