We Need The First Amendment For Assholes, Not For Nice Little Old Ladies Who Crochet
A tweet:
@Jason
Some new members of the @aclu are upset that the ACLU is defending... the First Amendment!
I see this happening more and more -- especially amongst millennials.
And about this, on NPR, Lourdes Garcia-Navarro talks to Lee Rowland, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU. The preamble:
This week, the ACLU expressed support for a free speech case. This one involves Milo Yiannopoulos. He's the divisive editor of the far-right website Breitbart News, and he's said things like feminism is a cancer.He was recently supposed to speak at UC Berkeley, but intense protests led the school to cancel the event last minute. The ACLU says no matter how much you might dislike what he has to say, it's protected free speech, and that makes some of its newest supporters upset.
A bit from the interview:
GARCIA-NAVARRO: So what's the case for defending Mr. Yiannopoulos in your view?ROWLAND: Well, the case for Mr. Yiannopoulos is the same as it would be for any speaker, no matter how despicable or offensive we might find them, which is the First Amendment protects our right to speak out on matters of public concern, to talk about things that are as offensive as the things that Mr. Yiannopoulos says without censorship by the government. And ideally, as in his case, without people physically preventing him from speaking at a place where he had every right to speak.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: So the ACLU and you specifically, actually, have received criticism on social media about this. Does the ACLU need to do a better job explaining why it's defending him and other cases like this, where someone is committing what some would consider hate speech?
ROWLAND: Well, look, I certainly understand that, especially for many of our new members, they may be surprised by the ACLU's robust First Amendment positions, but it's certainly not new. Indeed, one of our most high-profile and controversial moments in the ACLU's history was defending the rights of literal self-proclaimed Nazis to march through the streets of Skokie, a town made up largely of Holocaust survivors. What's amazing about the First Amendment is it protects us, regardless of our viewpoints, regardless of the causes we hold dear.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But isn't hate speech different?
ROWLAND: There's no question that the things that Mr. Yiannopoulos says are unbelievably hateful in nature. But the phrase hate speech is a form of free speech. Again, in defending the rights of others to speak, whether or not we agree with them, we must all reach out and protect the speech that we most disagree with or else the First Amendment is just reduced to a popularity contest and has no meaning.
Oh, and banning speech -- or trying to shut it down -- will either take it underground, where it's more dangerous, or it'll make it that much more popular.
Sam Barsanti writes at A.V. Club that it looks like Milo Yiannopoulos is working out of the Tucker Max playbook:
Holiday is now editor-at-large for the Observer, and he's written an extensive piece about how his Tucker Max strategy has been adopted by Yiannopoulos, his supporters, and other racist/sexist/alt-right assholes who are trying to spread hate and incite fear. As Holiday explains, they promoted Max's movie (and his book of the same name) by buying cheap ads that they would call people to complain about, by submitting fake tips about Tucker Max-related controversies to Gawker, and by vandalizing their own billboards to make Tucker Max seem dangerous, subversive, and--most of all--super cool. Holiday is now seeing these same strategies being used to promote Yiannopoulos, and he wants people to recognize how easily they can play right into the hands of these jerks.Holiday says the trick isn't to try to take away Yiannopoulos' platform by protesting his campus talks or whatever, because that will just give his supporters something to rally against. Instead, he suggests actually listening to people like Yiannopoulos and giving them a chance to speak, because then the public will have a chance to hear their awful, hateful ideas and they'll--hopefully--recognize them as being awful and hateful. Holiday says the sales of Tucker's books disappeared when the controversy and outrage surrounding him ran its course, so he believes that Yiannopoulos and Nazis like Richard Spencer will eventually get bored or tire themselves out if everyone stops feeding their marketing machines.
I doubt that.
Ultimately, there's an answer to speech you don't like, and it's more speech -- debate -- not trying to squash the speech that offends you.
And, getting back to Milo, @Popehat for the win:
Seriously though. Fighting Milo with boycotts and outrage is like fighting a dog by throwing bacon at it.
— So-called Popehat (@Popehat) December 29, 2016
When you've been taught that slogans are deep thought, debate is deeply unsettling.
Wfjag at February 15, 2017 1:31 AM
Milo scams his supporters on a consistent basis. He created the "Privilege Grant" where he asked for donations for a grant specifically tailored for white males to get a college education. He pocketed something like $100,000-250,000
Not the first time he has done it.
No need to ban his speech, he is actually a leech who is hurting the very people who support him. He IS the punishment. Let him be and ignore him.
Ppen at February 15, 2017 1:49 AM
@ppen, you mean this privilege grant? You are misinformed. It took some time, but it's alive and well.
Do you have any examples of instances that you aren't wrong about?
Pjg at February 15, 2017 2:40 AM
I listened to this when it was broadcast. It loses something in transcript - this
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But isn't hate speech different?
doesn't capture the disbelief in Garcia-Navarro's voice. But it's hate speech - surely that means we can ban it?
Full marks to Attorney Rowland for a fairly full-on defense of all forms of speech, and making it clear that all speech is free speech.
But even there, there is equivocation, when she says
ROWLAND: There's no question that the things that Mr. Yiannopoulos says are unbelievably hateful in nature.
Bollocks. I've seen Milo speak in person, and I've seen some of his appearances on the Tube of You. What he says is not 'unbelievably hateful', in fact, it's generally not hateful at all. He is a flamboyant provocateur who makes his points with satire, with humor and sometimes with direct and unwelcome facts. But you'll hear more no-foolin' hate in a typical Democratic political speech (think 'basket of deplorables') than you will in a speech from Milo.
What Attorney Rowland did was the sort of weak-kneed, lily-livered defense of free speech that makes me nervous - well, yes, we all agree that he's not very nice, not People Like Us, but we have to support him in spite of that. She gave the impression that the ACLU's support for Milo is reluctant. What she should have said is this:
"What you think of Milo's opinions, or what I think of them, is immaterial. You, or I, or anyone else, does not get to delegitimize his speech by branding it 'hate speech', which is nothing more than an expression of your opinion, which therefore has the exact-same value and weight as his opinion. The term 'hate speech' has no definition and no specificity, and in the end it boils down to nothing more than 'speech I don't like', and so it has no value and no bearing on a conflict of ideas and how the law should deal with it.
The ACLU's position is that all expressions of opinion, which are otherwise peaceful and do not incite violence or disorder*, have exactly equal value, and we will defend all equally, and with no expression of our opinion as to the relative value of any one opinion over any other.
*A special note regarding incitement to violence and disorder. There is no legitimacy to any claim that speech must be suppressed because it may incite violence by those opposed to the speaker's opinions. That is the 'heckler's veto', and is the most insidious threat that there is to free speech. For that reason, the ACLU is implacably opposed to any form of restriction of free speech based upon a supposed threat of violence by those who disagree, and this extends to opposing all forms of restrictions upon speakers in the name of 'security', such as fees for added protection or limits on access to or distribution of speech. It is one of the duties of a free society to protect the right of anybody to speak freely as they see fit. No peaceful speaker should ever be required to pay the state for the privilege to speak his mind, and the proper function of the state's police powers is to protect the speaker and his right to speak his mind without fear of violence and intimidation by anybody."
That's what she should have said.
llater,
llamas
llamas at February 15, 2017 3:56 AM
Milo is not racist nor a white supremacist. When will the liars stop lying? Why does economic nationalism frighten the left so much they lie about it?
Steve at February 15, 2017 4:35 AM
I preordered his new book last month. Must be selling well, as I got a note from Ammy yesterday that I won't get mine delivered until June.
roadgeek at February 15, 2017 5:22 AM
Yeah, lumping Yiannopoulos in with Richard Spencer and Tucker Max is intellectual laziness. For that matter, lumping Richard Spencer and Tucker Max together is laziness. Let's review:
Richard Spencer: Promoter of "white rights"; straddles the line between pointing out discrimination against whites and outright racism. He's not David Duke, but he comes close enough to it to make a lot of people who support a true color-blind society uncomfortable.
Tucker Max: PUA, pretty much a one-trick pony. He had his fifteen minutes.
Milo Yiannopoulos: Provocateur, no doubt. But a lot of his "provocation" consists simply of pointing out thing that people don't want to hear. Is post-modern feminism intellectually vapid? Yes, it is. Are post-modern feminism sexual mores Puritan? Yes, they are. Are post-modern feminist leaders misandrists? Yes, they are. The Left labels this "hate" because it has no well-reasoned response, so it resorts to DARVO tactics instead.
Cousin Dave at February 15, 2017 8:56 AM
Milo is not racist nor a white supremacist. When will the liars stop lying?
_______________________________________
Maybe he isn't, but he certainly has immature, kooky religious ideas, for starters, as you can see here:
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/12/08/birth-control-makes-women-unattractive-and-crazy/
(You have to scroll down to the last two paragraphs.)
By "immature" (aside from the tone of the piece in general), I mean that he doesn't care to present his ideas in a truly scientific, academic manner. If you want someone who's bound to stir up controversy because he's regarded as Islamophobic at least, why not just get Sam Harris? If you want someone who has plenty of complaints about modern feminism, why not get Christina Hoff Summers or even Wendy Kaminer? Even an appearance by Camille Paglia might not get cancelled - if only because people have become somewhat numb to her by now.
My point is that the only apparent point of inviting someone who's a journalist, bound to get cancelled, and not exactly on the same level as older, more serious journalists (or someone like Sam Harris, a neuroscientist and philosopher) is that it gives HIM publicity. Had they picked any of the other people I mentioned, chances are the students might actually have been willing to LISTEN to things they didn't exactly want to hear - if only in their campus newspapers the next day.
As the old proverb goes: "Persuasion is better than force." Inviting more temperate (but not wimpy) people to speak would have been an example of that, when it comes to getting students to listen to all sides.
lenona at February 15, 2017 9:15 AM
The fundamental flaw in the "hate speech" argument, is that today's snowflakes take offense even at mild things, the truth. By their reasoning, one may not even speak about limits on immigration (is 10 million per year too many?) or the unfair treatment of men on campus. One may not even suggest that perhaps single women should try to avoid getting pregnant, since that is shaming them. One would possibly even get in trouble for promoting weight loss and exercise, since that is fat shaming.
Oh, and it is nice of the ACLU to finally stand up for free speech, but they have been AWOL quite a bit recently.
These same snowflakes also support hate speech against Israel or against white people or men. But that is different because....reasons.
cc at February 15, 2017 10:27 AM
The fundamental flaws in the "hate speech" argument is that hate speech is whatever an aggrieved party says it is. It's an ambiguous definition that can change from person-to-person or day-to-day. The enforcement powers such a definition would give to the government are staggering and unrestrained.
Such a exception gives the government carte blanche to harass and imprison anyone with little-to-no due process. Simply define what they said as said by a person of that particular demographic as hate speech and it's book 'em, Danno.
All speech must be protected, even hateful speech, and protected by all of us.
Once again, the snowflakes think the Revolution won't come for them. Just ask Robespierre or Trostky how that worked out for them.
Conan the Grammarian at February 15, 2017 12:08 PM
Regarding the ACLU, I get the impression that they really don't have an organization-wide consensus on what their basic mission is. I regard the national organization as pretty useless, but some of the chapters do good work.
Cousin Dave at February 15, 2017 1:14 PM
Regardless of what one thinks of Milo's speech, I find it HIGHLY useful to point to him when fans of the snowflake squeal about Mr. Trump.
The gay Jew with a black boyfriend says he wants to make America great again, too. Protestors quickly expose themselves when this is pointed out; they have no desires, really, other than to get personal advantage. "Social justice" always means something special and extra for them.
Radwaste at February 15, 2017 1:19 PM
Speaking of Milo, well, what do you know...this is what I suspected.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/opinion/advice-for-my-conservative-students.html?_r=0
Advice for My Conservative Students
Aaron Hanlon FEB. 16, 2017
Excerpts:
WATERVILLE, Me. — Conservative media outlets have built a cottage industry of outrage on the premise that conservative students are victims of a “tyrannical” campus left. I know this message well, because over a decade ago, as a conservative student at Bucknell, I helped devise and spread it...
...I’m still very proud of the level of analysis and rigor I put into my work as a student. I may not have sharpened my skills in the same way if everyone agreed with me. You can and should be proud of good-faith political engagement. The point is: You have a voice and ideas that people need to hear, but don’t compare disagreement with your ideas to suppression.
Many conservative students denounced recent protests against the college tour of the right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos as an attack on free speech. In all likelihood, those were protests against Mr. Yiannopoulos’s bullying and ridicule. A “conservative campus speaker” is not someone who belittles left-wing students, but whose visit is for teaching and learning. It is important you invite speakers to campus. We certainly did. But seek out the highly credentialed thinkers, like Walter Williams, Victor Davis Hanson or Yuval Levin.
Hostility to campus speakers will still come from the left. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education keeps a handy database of nationwide attempts to withdraw invitations to speakers, and 2016 was a record year. But almost a third of those attempts were directed at Mr. Yiannopoulos alone. That should be food for thought. Until you stop settling for what’s surely the satisfying release of Mr. Yiannopoulos’s deliberate and superficial antagonism, you can’t know whether it’s the actual conservatism that your fellow students have rejected.
If you take responsibility for the parts of your education you control, and focus your energy on learning, writing, speaking and debating (instead of shock-value pranks, appeals to victimhood or dismissal of academia at large), you will grow and succeed. You will also learn far more in the process than you do from feeding the campus-outrage beast or making fun of “snowflakes.”
Take the tremendous opportunity of a college education to sharpen your skills and deepen your knowledge. Read Edmund Burke, Matthew Arnold, Russell Kirk, Thomas Sowell, Michael Oakeshott and Peggy Noonan. Acknowledge arguments you disagree with on their own terms, and respond to their substance. For example, instead of claiming that regulating offensive Halloween costumes is stifling free speech, speak out with an argument about the value of “offensive” Halloween costumes. Your professors want you to learn the skills of written and oral argument. We will help and support you if you ask. Seriously, we will.
Put conservative ideas at the forefront of your politics, even if conservative leaders and icons have largely abandoned conservatism. In some ways your potential to make civil choices and to restore dignity to the Republican Party makes you the most crucial allies of those across the political spectrum who care about truth, honor, liberty and democracy.
My aspiration for all the students I teach who don’t agree with me is for them to become my most formidable interlocutors. If you don’t like this advice, consider it a prompt.
Aaron Hanlon is an English professor at Colby College.
lenona at February 16, 2017 8:45 AM
"For example, instead of claiming that regulating offensive Halloween costumes is stifling free speech, speak out with an argument about the value of “offensive” Halloween costumes. "
Nope. Because that's conflating a moral issue with a legal one. And enabling the heckler's veto. In today's environment, "speaking out" about Halloween costumes is a call for censorship. Period.
Cousin Dave at February 16, 2017 12:18 PM
lenona, with all due respect fuck you and the horse you rode in on
SETTING SHIT YOU DONT OWN ON FIRE is NOT protesting
ASSAULTING PEOPLE WITH METAL PIPES is NOT protesting
Spraying people in the face with pepper spray because you dont like their opinion is NOT protesting
It is assault, it is rioting, it is criminal.
To reduce destruction of property and assaut to 'protestsing' sets a dangerous precident.
Under this definition you tacitly support I now have the 'right to defend myself' from your words by hitting you in the face with a baseball bat.
That really the world you want to live in?
lujlp at February 16, 2017 12:30 PM
Jeez, did *I* say it wasn't criminal behavior?
Go complain to Hanlon if his op-ed bothers you so much. Note that he didn't exactly praise the protestors, even if he didn't call them criminals and nothing else. (How many journalists WOULD call them criminals when they're not career criminals?)
I think one point Hanlon was trying to make was that even if the students had managed to get the appearance cancelled without doing anything illegal, there would still have been a lot of outside anger and criticism of that too - and Hanlon was simply trying to point out that bullying begets bullying. (I can't remember anyone's calling Sam Harris a bully or even a rude person - as I said, why didn't they just invite him if they wanted a little controversy that would be somewhat likely to draw national attention?)
lenona at February 16, 2017 1:43 PM
To confirm, no, it is not legal or acceptable to use violence or destroy property in response to verbal bullying.
(It's also not civilized to use foul language against someone who doesn't use it, luj.)
lenona at February 17, 2017 1:23 PM
Show me something that Milo has said that was "unbelievably hateful in nature". Honest, I looked. I couldn't find anything.
Alan at February 19, 2017 7:24 PM
Leave a comment