Free Speech for Me, but Not For Thee

[Moksha]

Second offense: if the injunction is not immediately complied with, $10,000 per person, per violation against all persons who participate directly or indirectly "promoting positions in opposition to closely held religious beliefs of the student."

Will this be enforced by the Republican Honors Code Committee?

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-only-on ... theorists/

tl;dr - Leftists ban books in school districts all the time



Just to be clear, unless it’s something like porno that minors can access, I’m not a fan of banning, censoring, or removing access to any books. I get school districts can only teach so many books in a school year to students, so hard choices have to be made, but straight up banning or burning books, or denying curriculum based on the criteria of race, ethnicity, or creed is wrong, in my opinion.

We're 100% in agreement. But various individuals or groups criticizing books is not the same as "banning" them. I'll agree that both "sides" denounce books from time to time. That's just us exercising our free speech. Actually banning books or removing them from libraries is a whole different thing.

Arguments over curriculum are a different sort of issue. Making a book inaccessible is entirely different from deciding which books should be taught in a curriculum. And "trigger warnings" in no way are equivalent to censorship or banning a book. The quoted piece is dripping with false equivalency.

As well, the article immediately gets off to a bad start, as Dr. Seuss books were not ever ‘banned’ …

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commen ... utType=amp

Regardless, I’m not sure that the issue of banning books quite rises to the level of what the legislation in the OP attempts to do, regarding snuffing out discussion of ‘positions’.

Your linked article doesn’t really tell the reader the motivations behind the reason why Dr. Seuss books were ‘de-emphasized’ by the National Education Association and subsequently the Loudon County Public School system following seuit. I guess one can parse words or haggle over meanings, but at the end of the day Dr. Seuss was deemed heretical and Ingsoc is erasing him.

- Doc

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Hey communist.

I do not think you found the gotchya that you think you got.

Have you considered what "censure" even means? It does not mean censor. If anything, anyone who thinks that an act to censure is anything more than a stupid show of nothingness is probably either a communist or a pussy or both.

So much ignorance and irony in such a small post.

1. Doc never said censure meant censor.
2. Censure doesn't need to be synonymous with censor in order for his point to be valid.
3. By passing a motion to censure Cheney and Kinzinger for merely expressing their opinions that are actually well grounded and based on fact, they're telling us exactly what they think about freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is great so long as you're singing Donald Trump's praises. Otherwise you're going to be maligned in the worst way.
4. Only a moron would think Doc was saying Cheney and Kinzinger could be literally censored!
5. You need to start dealing with what people say and not what they don't, otherwise you come across as a jackass and moron.
6. You haven't even begun to show Doc doesn't understand what insurrection means, but it seems you're taking Tucker Carlson's cue. Nice job at further destroying whatever credibility you think you had here. Tell us more about how you don't watch FOX.
7. Oh, and you're a fool for throwing out big words you don't understand (communist!)

Jesus Christ Binger is a damned retard. I swear there’s something legitimately wrong with the Conservatives-Who-Post-Here's (CWPH) brains.

They can’t read beyond a few sentences. This has proven true for Conservatives-who-post-here (CWPH) for quite a while now. They simply won’t read what you posted above because they don’t have the synaptic capacity to sustain that kind of effort. You might as well believe Harambe will come down from Heaven upon High and deliver the golden plates for study. It’s an impossibility. This is why CWPHs tend to default to videos and do well with memes - it’s why I post a lot of pictures, because they’re able to process them more effectively than reading words.

Reading words literally, and I mean literally, hurts their brains -tension headaches set in quicker for them than it does for others.

It’s why the CWPHs lie constantly about who they are, their status, whatever, because they’re deeply insecure about their own stupidity. You see this a lot with deeply conservative folks - they don’t read, they just say things, they’re insanely gullible, hyperdefensive, insecure, whatever, and it boils down to them being made to feel lesser than others because their heads hurt when they do the learnin’.

For example, I’m deliberately making this post longer than necessary because I understand the bigger the post, the more challenging it’ll be for those lying sacks of crap to work through it. So they’ll either just see a bunch of words and not bother, or if they do bother, which is unlikely, they’ll get a tension headache so it’s a win-win either way.

The only exception to CWPH behavior I’ve seen is the Conservative Skimmer. I’ve notice some CWPHs will skim a post, attempting to glean meaning or intent, rather than reading for understanding, nuance, and thoroughness. They’re a subset of CWPHs who don’t read. MG is a CWPH who skims, picking out key words that afford him the veneer of learnin’ without actually putting in the work.

Anyway. I think I’ve made this post sufficiently long enough to drive home the point. Thanks for all the fish.

- Doc

[Res Ipsa]

I think authoritarianism is a good way to look at the entire situation. I find myself reading this essay from 1964 from time to time to help put current events into context. This essay by Hofstadter and his book "The True Believer" are excellent, I think, in showing how a democracy can be driven into authoritarianism. https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the ... -politics/

For what it's worth, I think you've got your Hofs all mixed up, counselor. The True Believer was Eric Hoffer's--and I think he espoused a philosophy that was quite different from Hofstadter's.

You’re right. Damn old man brain.

[Binger]

So much ignorance and irony in such a small post.

1. Doc never said censure meant censor.
2. Censure doesn't need to be synonymous with censor in order for his point to be valid.
3. By passing a motion to censure Cheney and Kinzinger for merely expressing their opinions that are actually well grounded and based on fact, they're telling us exactly what they think about freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is great so long as you're singing Donald Trump's praises. Otherwise you're going to be maligned in the worst way.
4. Only a moron would think Doc was saying Cheney and Kinzinger could be literally censored!
5. You need to start dealing with what people say and not what they don't, otherwise you come across as a jackass and moron.
6. You haven't even begun to show Doc doesn't understand what insurrection means, but it seems you're taking Tucker Carlson's cue. Nice job at further destroying whatever credibility you think you had here. Tell us more about how you don't watch FOX.
7. Oh, and you're a fool for throwing out big words you don't understand (communist!)

Jesus Christ Binger is a damned retard. I swear there’s something legitimately wrong with the Conservatives-Who-Post-Here's (CWPH) brains.

They can’t read beyond a few sentences. This has proven true for Conservatives-who-post-here (CWPH) for quite a while now. They simply won’t read what you posted above because they don’t have the synaptic capacity to sustain that kind of effort. You might as well believe Harambe will come down from Heaven upon High and deliver the golden plates for study. It’s an impossibility. This is why CWPHs tend to default to videos and do well with memes - it’s why I post a lot of pictures, because they’re able to process them more effectively than reading words.

Reading words literally, and I mean literally, hurts their brains -tension headaches set in quicker for them than it does for others.

It’s why the CWPHs lie constantly about who they are, their status, whatever, because they’re deeply insecure about their own stupidity. You see this a lot with deeply conservative folks - they don’t read, they just say things, they’re insanely gullible, hyperdefensive, insecure, whatever, and it boils down to them being made to feel lesser than others because their heads hurt when they do the learnin’.

For example, I’m deliberately making this post longer than necessary because I understand the bigger the post, the more challenging it’ll be for those lying sacks of crap to work through it. So they’ll either just see a bunch of words and not bother, or if they do bother, which is unlikely, they’ll get a tension headache so it’s a win-win either way.

The only exception to CWPH behavior I’ve seen is the Conservative Skimmer. I’ve notice some CWPHs will skim a post, attempting to glean meaning or intent, rather than reading for understanding, nuance, and thoroughness. They’re a subset of CWPHs who don’t read. MG is a CWPH who skims, picking out key words that afford him the veneer of learnin’ without actually putting in the work.

Anyway. I think I’ve made this post sufficiently long enough to drive home the point. Thanks for all the fish.

- Doc

Got it. So free speech is alive and well in the Republican party. They are free to express anything they want. In fact, free speech is so free within the party, they can censure one another. They can express their discontent within the party without fear of censorship. Speech is so free within the party, they can call each other insurrectionists without being censored. That is the point that you and K. Graham are making, correct? There was no censorship, at all, and the party tolerates free speech, including speech about speech.

[Binger]

January 6th was legitimate political discourse.
War is peace.
Slavery is freedom.
We have always been at war Eastasia.

I think a class in Newspeak is essential for understanding the language of the modern GOP.

Imagine if there were no Trump flags, no American Flags, No Confederate Flags, no Swastikas...That on January 6th you could not identify the political motivations of the demonstrators. Imagine if you could only identify them by their actions. How many people would say that the demonstrators constituted "legitimate political discourse"?

I don't know when the Republican Party officially took leave of its senses, but "legitimate political discourse" could serve as a bon voyage party.

by the way, here's Webster on the definition of discourse:

the use of words to exchange thoughts and ideas
[examples]
It's a word that doesn't have much use in ordinary discourse. [=conversation]
He likes to engage in lively discourse with his visitors.
public/political discourse

...so I guess January 6th was all about the use of words. Tell that to the dead and wounded.

Does understanding the Democrats come naturally, or does that require filters and distortions and affirmation too?

[canpakes]

Your linked article doesn’t really tell the reader the motivations behind the reason why Dr. Seuss books were ‘de-emphasized’ by the National Education Association and subsequently the Loudon County Public School system following seuit. I guess one can parse words or haggle over meanings, but at the end of the day Dr. Seuss was deemed heretical and Ingsoc is erasing him.

- Doc

De-emphasized is a fancy way of saying ‘not promoted’. Like statues of confederate generals, sometimes old standards give way to newer ones. A promoted icon need not always be preserved in the face of many competing items over time.

As you point out, book banning is a tool carried out by folks with varied agendas, but characterizing Seuss books as ‘banned’ does not fit, especially given that his estate made the decision to discontinue a handful of lesser-known titles after the better part of a century.

Here’s an image from one of those books:



Seuss himself moved past his own racist depictions, over time. I don’t think that he’d have been terribly disappointed in his estate’s decision.

[Binger]

So, where are we? Looks like the people that are not free to speak is "us" which includes "me." The people that are disallowing "us" and "me" from speaking is "you" and "them" but never "me" and "us."

Cool. So everyone gets to be a victim of censorship and nobody is ever responsible for censorship. All we need to do is declare our tribe affiliation and call the other side names. The good news is that at least one tribe is free to censure/judge without censoring itself. So at least we cleared that part up. But regardless/irregardless, looks like both sides are victims and not responsible for a damn thing. Cool Cool. Carry on.

[Chap]

It's unpleasant to be reminded of what the white editors and writers/artists of graphic material half a century or so ago thought was innocently funny.

Where I lived as a youthful comic reader, I never saw a black person, and there simply were none to be seen outside a few big cities. For me, they were just imaginary comical creatures, like gnomes. When I eventually did see some real black people, they looked so unlike the comic images that at first I did not make the connection.

If, on the other hand, I had been brought up in those parts of the US where there are a lot of black people around, I am sure that as a white kid I might have been led to regard black people as stupid and ridiculous in real life. I shudder to think what it would have been like as a black kid to see that kind of stuff - "they think that's what I'm like???"

I would not however like to deprive kids of the simple reading pleasure of 99% or more of the Seuss series because of some of the images he drew. Just clean up the nasty stuff.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Your linked article doesn’t really tell the reader the motivations behind the reason why Dr. Seuss books were ‘de-emphasized’ by the National Education Association and subsequently the Loudon County Public School system following seuit. I guess one can parse words or haggle over meanings, but at the end of the day Dr. Seuss was deemed heretical and Ingsoc is erasing him.

- Doc

De-emphasized is a fancy way of saying ‘not promoted’. Like statues of confederate generals, sometimes old standards give way to newer ones. A promoted icon need not always be preserved in the face of many competing items over time.

Here’s the study that was most likely responsible for the NEA dropping Dr. Seuss from its reading campaign:

https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewconte ... ntext=rdyl

tl;dr because reading hurts and ain’t no one going to read 51 pages in an ongoing discussion about books being, uh, de-emphasized from curriculum:

As critical race scholar-activists, we engaged stakeholders, including youth, families, and teachers from racially marginalized communities, to identify and document existing forms of resistance to Seuss' racist works.

eta: this might have pushed the issue along, too (it’s from the Pragmatic Mom blog where one of your images is linked)

https://www.pragmaticmom.com/wp-content ... andRAA.pdf

tl;dr - Dr. Seuss is racist and the NEA needs to move off him and his books

- Doc