Trump administration attacks on free speech

Trump administration cutting funding based on tolerance of criticism of Israel is a clear 1st amendment violation. Republicans have loved moaning about free speech in recent years, but their true authoritarian impulses are now in full view.

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Idk if I’d go that far to suggest the Orange Administration was authoritarian, as the idea of political QPQ they kick around in the interview suggests otherwise.

What seems more likely to me is that yes, the rules against calling Israel racist or some other smear have been elevated to “hate speech” in the same way hate speech against the Alphabet community was under the lefts recent administration.

“How do you like it?” Isn’t a great motto and not one people learn from. But it may be one universities who get lot of government money from just might.

I haven’t finished, but I wanted to address that point. A lot of people see 1/6 as a free speech issue as well. Given the recent solving of border problems for good by actually doing it without much effort, puts both sides of the aisle down one single-issue issue come election time.

With Israel, now the right has one back. The left is forced to defend hate speech. :microphone:

They’d be better off smashing Trump for the stock market. :laughing:

Ok— back to it. Good podcast.

Btw, this is what I was alluding to the other day, wrt Waldron and judicial review. A nationalistic legislative majority will create laws that create marginalized communities or inflame the ones that already exist. It’ll take time for the judicial system to make sense of it— sound familiar? (Cough CRT)

The guy, Zed/Zaid? said something interesting toward the end about Trump sending different signals. He was talking about the best way to reduce the amount of noise was to end the conflict. He pointed out that while is trying to crack down on universities for their anti Israel hate speech and Hamas support, Trump is also trying to end the war , even going over Bibi’s head to get Hamas to the negotiating table— and regardless of his success, he is trying.

That doesn’t sound authoritarian to me. It seems like a pushback against the high minded academics who pushed CRT/DEI and then took billions in covid funds, and there was a lot of criticism of that.

The argument went: Why do these big universities need tax dollars when they have so much money and get so much from private donations?

Idk if this is the rights ideological counterstrike, but it looks like it. Calling a dood in address “Sir” is hate speech? Ok , then so is calling is areal racist. It’s worse for the institutions of course because the government doesn’t pay the anti-trans guy 400,000,000 bucks.

:idunno:

That was discussed. There’s more than enough to go around, for sure.

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Yeah, as soon as I returned to the podcast, they said it. lol

Trump is a 2x4. This is his way of getting people’s attention. If, in the end, universities do promote freer speech on both sides, where conservative groups can have idk that skinny black mouth breather woman without antifa style riots from the sensitive left, that would be better.

It’s weird, I like going to rallys from all different perspectives and watching the reaction they get from the crowd. I’m not seeing a lot of reaction from the right yet to Trumps actions, and even Zes was like, yeah it’s been pretty unfair for conservatives in universities for the last decade or so.

Maybe the balance hasn’t been achieved yet. :idunno:

If you believe in freedom of speech, then you respect it. There’s no devil’s balance to be achieved here.

There is a need for understanding. History repeats and all.

I’ve got that covered :slight_smile: Time to deal with the present!

Immigrant to be deported to France for engaging in speech activities the government doesn’t like:

“Give me your tired, your hungry, your poor
They better STFU though”

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I’m still waiting for Trump’s response/reaction to the 100 lawsuits working through the courts. I find that I am more of a structuralist than I thought. lol It’s not like the SCOTUS isn’t weighted in his favor or anything. When they rebuke, as they just did about the foreign aid, I believe, that’s the check part of checks and balances.

So, again, I don’t see the present you’re so focused on as being as bad as you perceive it to be, or in a word: authoritarian. Just a lot of checking going on. I thought you liked ice soccer?

IDK know exactly what the Palestinian student did during the protests, but this article made me broaden my looksee at the problem a bit from civil disobedience, which was mentioned in the podcast, to civil terrorism, which has been a political issue largely employed by the left in the US since the 1970s and other groups well before that.

The Rise of Civil Terrorism

I expect with grumpy Trump in office the consequences, along with deportation and cut funding will look like this"

Civil terrorism is a dangerous manifestation of a simmering battle for the West. Its practitioners hate the West. They are trying to destroy it, not fix it. There is no known cure for anti-Westernism. In a free country of hundreds of millions of people, bad and destructive ideas are bound to catch on among a few thousand lunatics. But we have a cure for anti-American and anti-Semitic criminal behavior: put the criminals who act unlawfully upon those ideas in prison, confiscate their funds, uproot their criminal networks, deter their would-be imitators, and give public spaces back to the decent Americans who deserve them.

I think it’s horrifying and dystopian, whichever side it’s coming from, in this case Trump and the Republicans who have been bleating about free speech ad nauseam for years.

Clearly not sending their best

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I haven’t heard anything except being the most visible mouthpiece for them. He was never accused of any crime to my knowledge. If “Westernism” means shutting down voices that are opposed to you, even if stridently or wrongly, then I have no use for “Westernism” personally. Of course, it doesn’t mean that though. This is textbook authoritarianism, not Westernism. “People we don’t like are anti-Semites and criminals”

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I guess I’m not so emotive.

And what they are doing, the pushback will be seen by their supporters as protections OF free speech, the return of the conservative voice on campus in particular.

Then so was the DEI’s “If you don’t like trans people/rights, you’re X.”

As for the authoritarian claim, I don’t think it is. not as long as Trump has support for what’s he’s doing.

Authoritarianism is a principle of blind submission to authority, as opposed to individual freedom of thought and action . In government, authoritarianism denotes any political system that concentrates power in the hands of a leader or a small elite that is not constitutionally responsible to the body of the people.

You could argue that his supporters are blind, I suppose, but the opponents surely haven’t been shut down, and in a few years, Trump will be out, and if his policies haven’t held up his end of the bargain, it’s out with them bums, so, they will be held constitutionally responsible.

You can’t just jump to the end because you live in the present and then assume that he WON’T be held accountable. :wink:

Maybe you just care less about free speech!

I doubt that. I’ve just seen what happens when one side of a conversation gets shut down for like — ever. I worked in an inner city school district run by left wing do gooders remember. :laughing:

Two wrongs don’t make a right. Anyway, I’ll continue pointing out problems (as I was doing throughout the last administration) as I see them.

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Mmm that’s called an attempted insurrection.

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