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The State Of Free Speech And Tolerance In America: CATO Institute
I guess I just don't get it. No one stops me from saying what I want (adult company). People want to say things without peer reaction. Sorry, you have to have the conviction of your speech. If I think you hateful for saying something I believe to be hateful, I haven't stopped you from saying it. I have the right to say your speech is hateful if you have the right to say something I believe to be hateful. Tit-for-tat. I'm beginning to think Americans are developing strange thinking patterns.
I just thought of a personal example. I grew up in Mississippi and have a Facebook page just to see what became of people I grew up with. One of the recent "shares" is one urging people to report and boycott any business this season that either posts "Happy Holidays" without mention of Christmas or fails to wish a "Merry Christmas". So I guess Mr. Stein, a local Jewish business leader, better make sure he singles out Christmas or else he has taken the freedom of speech from people celebrating Christmas. I think the rabble rousers are creating a bunch of bunk and people are falling for it.
@Anna The thing to get is that this is the Cato Institute and it wants you to believe that conservatives are being oppressed. Here's one important fact, first amendment rights are only protected by the Constitution on public property not private property. So there is an important distinction to be made between public universities and private universities and a further distinction for private universities that receive public funding. On private property, free speech can legally be restricted in a myriad of ways and while Cato would like you to believe these kinds of restrictions are exclusive to liberal universities, employees wearing a Planned Parenthood T-shirt at Hobby Lobby probably wouldn't have a job for long. A man was once arrested for refusing to remove a "Give Peace a Chance" T-Shirt in an Albany, NY shopping mall and the courts upheld the mall's right to do that: slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2003/03/why_can_shopping_malls_limit_free_speech.html Why? Because it's private property. So why all this focus on universities and young people's speech? Speech is restricted all the time in the U.S. and it isn't just on campus.
Hi @Anna I've had recent conversations with folks 'bout "what's going on" and what I feel has been in place more and more for several decades is showing its face more readily the past few years is really how lacking critical thinking has become. Critical thinking for me, being to the weighing of factors to obtain a clear picture of processes and possible outcomes for given inputs. A form of logic, but so many areas today are over filled with the emotional aspect that any form of logic takes a back seat. There indeed is another social revolution in play. K. This is as much as I allow myself to the quasi-political/social here. Okay, must depart. Catch
I wasn't going to wade in to this decidedly political, off-topic discussion that Ted introduced. But I decided (perhaps against better judgment) to offer a few observations:
Nothing new here - it's been shown over and over that the public would not support the Bill of Rights, which protects people from the tyranny of the majority ("we the people"). There's always been a lot of ignorance (neutral word - lack of knowledge). Here's a report (NTimes, 1991) of a poll to that effect, reporting that 51% of people feel the government should ban hate speech. (The Cato survey reports "only" 40% now feel that way; an improvement I guess.)
Of course the Cato report is political. For example, it highlights how much "strong liberals" would condone violence against Nazis (without even defining "strong liberal" - a term that appears nowhere in the survey or the methodology). Over the entire spectrum, 32% of respondents found using violence a morally acceptable response. Meanwhile, a virtually contemporaneous survey of college students (sponsored by the Charles Koch Foundation) also addressed the use of violence against objectionable speech. There the preliminary writeup noted:
While percentages in the high teens and 20s are “low” relative to what they could be, it’s important to remember that this question is asking about the acceptability of committing violence in order to silence speech. Any number significantly above zero is concerning.
Regardless of the respondent's politics.
Free speech (or lack thereof) in malls. Here's the rest of the story. The NYCLU brought and lost a suit (in 2009) on the Albany same case cited. Another summary of the current state of speech in malls (through 2012) is here. Calif. and NJ, yes, elsewhere, probably not.
Comments
slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2003/03/why_can_shopping_malls_limit_free_speech.html
Why? Because it's private property. So why all this focus on universities and young people's speech? Speech is restricted all the time in the U.S. and it isn't just on campus.
I've had recent conversations with folks 'bout "what's going on" and what I feel has been in place more and more for several decades is showing its face more readily the past few years is really how lacking critical thinking has become.
Critical thinking for me, being to the weighing of factors to obtain a clear picture of processes and possible outcomes for given inputs. A form of logic, but so many areas today are over filled with the emotional aspect that any form of logic takes a back seat.
There indeed is another social revolution in play.
K. This is as much as I allow myself to the quasi-political/social here.
Okay, must depart.
Catch
You got it: rousing the rabble is the goal today for the right. And this is Cato, one of more destructive outfits around.