RIP free speech: Little Brother is watching you
Ace points out that in the OU SAE case, even the ACLU (boy, that’s a lot of acronyms in one sentence) has been extremely reluctant to admit that the university acted unconstitutionally in expelling the two student ringleaders of the song. He also notes—correctly, I believe—that the argument running along the lines of “watch out, the same remedy could be used against people who say bigoted things about whites or Jews” runs up against reality:
Part of my problem with that kind of analysis is this: It is idealistic, and departs far from reality. We all understand the reality we are dealing with: Whites are now legally second-class citizens as regards this sort of law (and many others), and no college would ever try to boot out students for the kind of “racism” Volokh discusses. Oh, I suppose maybe some explicitly, actually Christian university might try the former, but they’d be backed down quickly after a bevy of lawyers and newsvans swarmed the campus.
No, what we are talking about with these Speechcraft trials is more-or-less explicitly a tool for non-whites to punish whites.
And no, that’s not just An Racist talking. The leftwingers pushing these Speechcraft trials are admirably upfront about their belief that speech codes bind “Oppressors” only, and do not bind “The Oppressed.”
There is even a claim made — frequently — that blacks are definitionally incapable of being racist, no matter how filled with racist animus a particular black person might be. The silly claim goes that Racism equals Racial Animus Plus Power, and as they have explicitly defined themselves as the powerless Oppressed, it is actually impossible for a black person to be racist.
Ace closes on a very somber note, saying he has no idea what to do and that “Pretty much the country is lost.” I’ve been feeling rather somber myself for the last couple of years, and in my bleaker hours I’m inclined to agree with him that the republic is over.
But I have a few things to say. The first is that the constitutional amendment protecting free speech is there because the Founders knew how great the temptation to suppress speech always is, and will probably always be. So although the suppression has taken a new form in recent years—a form that is in itself discriminatory, because it is differentially applied to different groups—the fight for free speech has always been a difficult one to win, human nature being what it is. The impulse to suppress “bad” speech feels so—well it feels so good and so right.
Ace is correct when he says that the “it could be applied to other groups” argument is unrealistic. But unrealistic or not, the argument can serve to point out a possibility that many people supporting the students’ ouster have perhaps not even considered, which is that actions like that could at least theoretically be extended in ways they wouldn’t like, and against people they support.
That may seem to be an obvious point, but it’s been my experience that many people have trouble imagining anything other than the situation that is actually before them. These hypotheticals about other races and religions can help them stretch their imaginations, and might perhaps cause a few to change their minds through mere self-interest: don’t support something that has at least the possibility of someday coming back to bite them in the butt.
It also has another possible (although related) effect, which is to underline that there is a principle involved, and that the principle is not “to defend young racist white guys.” It can help broaden the issue and get a person to see the point of protecting offensive speech in general.
Do I think most people will listen to that argument and concede the principle that it’s good to defend free speech, even offensive speech? No, absolutely not. And that’s where my pessimism arises.
I also am well aware of how long these trends have been going on, and that it’s not just about free speech, either. The university has been the epicenter of it all, and as long ago as the 60s it became clear that most college administrators are craven cowards. If you want to have more proof of that, do a search for “Allan Bloom” on this blog, or read his superb book The Closing of the American Mind.
In a previous post, I discussed and quoted Bloom, and it seems highly appropriate to do so again. The situation Bloom talks about is reversed from that at OU—Bloom describes the non-expulsion of some black students who were behaving in a way that should have unequivocally merited their dismissal (and even arrest)—but the incident shows how easily administrators can be intimidated by fears of being thought racist, and how ready they have long been to apply differential standards because of it:
In the following excerpt Bloom is describing an incident that occurred when he was a faculty member at Cornell during the late 60s, when black militants with guns occupied a campus building and made demands. Bloom had gone to the university provost to speak up for a black student of his (unnamed in the book, but actually Alan Keyes—who happens, in a strange twist of fate, to have been the person Barack Obama soundly defeated in his 2004 US Senate race, when Keyes was put on the Republican ballot as a hasty substitute for Jack Ryan). Keyes had earlier been threatened by a black professor at Cornell for refusing to take part in a demonstration. Here’s what Bloom says transpired [emphasis mine]:
The provost was a former natural scientist, and he greeted me with a mournful countenance. He, of course, fully sympathized with the young man’s [Keyes’] plight. However, things were bad, and there was nothing he could do to stop such behavior in the black student association…He added that no university in the country could expel radical black students, or dismiss the faculty members who incited them, presumably because the students at large would not permit it.
…The provost had a mixture of cowardice and moralism not uncommon at the time. He did not want trouble. His president had frequently cited Clark Kerr’s dismissal at the University of California as the great danger…At the same time the provost thought he was engaged in a great moral work, righting the historic injustice done to blacks. He could justify to himself the humiliation he was undergoing as a necessary sacrifice. The case of this particular black student clearly bothered him. But he was both more frightened of the violence-threatening extremists and also more admiring of them. Obvious questions were no longer obvious. Why could not a black student be expelled as a white student would be if he failed his courses or disobeyed the rules that make university community possible? Why could the president not call the police if order was threatened? Any man of weight would have fired the professor who threatened the life of the student. The issue was not complicated. Only the casuistry of weakness and ideology made it so…No one who knew or cared about what a university is would have acquiesced in this travesty. It was no surprise that a few weeks later—immediately after the faculty had voted overwhelmingly under the gun to capitulate to outrageous demands that it had a few days earlier rejected—the leading members of the administration and many well-known faculty members rushed over to congratulate the gathered students and tried to win their approval. I saw exposed before all the world what had long been known, and it was at last possible without impropriety to tell these pseudo-universitarians precisely what one thought of them.
It was also no surprise that many of those professors who had been most eloquent in their sermons about the sanctity of the university, and who had presented themselves as its consciences, were among those who reacted, if not favorably, at least weakly to what was happening. They had made careers out of saying how badly the German professors [during the Nazi era] had reacted to violations of academic freedom. This was all light talk and mock heroics, because they had not measured the potential threats to the university nor assessed the doubtful grounds of academic freedom. Above all, they did not think that it could be assaulted from the Left or from within the university…These American professors were utterly disarmed, as were many German professors, when the constituency they took for granted, of which they honestly believed they were independent, deserted or turned against them…To fulminate against Bible Belt preachers was one thing. In the world that counted for these professors, this could only bring approval. But to be isolated in the university, to be called foul names by their students or their colleagues, all for the sake of an abstract idea, was too much for them. They were not in general strong men, although their easy rhetoric had persuaded them that they were—that they alone manned the walls protecting civilization…
In the approximately fifty years since the Cornell battle occurred, and the over twenty-five years since Bloom’s book was written, things have progressed even further in the same direction. Now professors don’t even talk about the sanctity of the university and its principles; its main principle seem to be the defense of politically-correct thinking and the suppression of anything that smacks of its opposite.
In Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, thoughtcrime was detected by the telescreen, a ubiquitous TV set installed in all homes and public places to monitor people’s behavior and speech. Orwell was an exceptionally brilliant man, but he didn’t foresee the invention of the cellphone camera plus the internet, two developments that put the equivalent of a telescreen in the hands of nearly every citizen. Who knew that it would give people ammunition to spy on anyone they happen to encounter, whether in public or semi-private, and record their every offense?
The SAE brothers were in public, but next up will be the monitoring of one-on-one exchanges that fail to meet the PC test, and it won’t take something as egregious as the offensively racist song the SAEs sang. Already we have seen incidents where people are excoriated and shunned worldwide for jokes they’ve made on Twitter that are misinterpreted as racist—see the cautionary tale of Justine Sacco if you don’t believe me.
Big Brother isn’t watching you; Little Brother is, and he/she isn’t constrained by free speech rights when the chosen remedy is shunning by the community at large and/or firing from a job.
Like Ace, I don’t have a remedy. People are free to shun whomever they wish. But what used to be private or semi-private moments of stupidity, particularly among the young and foolish and/or drunk, have become public moments with extremely major consequences, now that things can so easily go viral. I think we lose more than we gain from this.
[NOTE: The free speech that should be protected by the university is not just about race and religion, either. Politics, gender, and a host of other issues can fall into the PC mindset.]
Recent example of similar behavior at UCLA – the student council that tried to deny a young woman a position purely because she was Jewish. The administration acted to correct the wrong that was done. But so far as I know, nothing happened to the students responsible.
One has only to look at the countries most like us to see how oppressive the speech police can be. Arrests of citizens in Canada, Britain and many western European nations purely for expressing politically incorrect opinion is common.
While the founders should be lauded for placing freedom of speech in the first amendment to the constitution, the frightening problem we face is that 4 current Supreme Court justices would almost certainly hold that OU had a right to close the fraternity and kick out SAE students, because social justice. If the lefties can convince Kennedy or Roberts to vote the ‘correct’ way, then we’ll have effectively amended the freedom of speech to freedom of speech for leftist-approved speech.
Wes Dorman:
Alternatively, if something were to happen to any of the conservative SCOTUS justices during Obama’s presidency, it would be over. The Court would be reliably liberal.
That’s one of the reasons I have never never understood the propensity of some conservatives to vote for third party candidates. We’ve had it out on all aspects of that argument many many times before on this blog.
Free speech is only dead if we refuse to pay the consequential price. That price may be public shaming or loss of livelihood or even prison. If we are unwilling to pay that price, then we are already enslaved because we have decided to place the chains of silence upon ourselves.
The way to combat shaming based in political correctness is to refuse to apologize for speaking the truth, only in accepting politically correct criticism as valid can it affect our sense of self-worth.
Our founding father Samuel Adams spoke of times such as these and his words apply today as much as they did when he spoke them;
“The liberties of our Country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have receiv’d them as a fair Inheritance from our worthy Ancestors: They purchas’d them for us with toil and danger and expence of treasure and blood; and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle; or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. Of the latter we are in most danger at present: Let us therefore be aware of it. Let us contemplate our forefathers and posterity; and resolve to maintain the rights bequeath’d to us from the former, for the sake of the latter.”
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
― Samuel Adams
What is it with the search for remedies? Are courses of action off the table because they have not a coda attached — “trust in this, this will work, this will stay the event, reverse the course”? Will no-one, pick up a spade without first a guarantee it will produce a ditch?
Geoffrey Britain and Sam Adams have and had it right. The very fact of the ability to spy on anyone whenever, whether public or semi-private, or private, makes indifference to the consequences imperative. Those who are rattled and are capable only of public displays of angst are useless. Those who wish to make a point might make one by dismissing the consequences of non-PC conduct/speech as inconsequential. A angelic choir, a heavenly host, singing, saying what other people don’t like is, if not a remedy, an anodyne.
I reserve the right to use my words to p*ss of anyone who disagrees with me, along with the right to give a lead injection to all who wish me and mine harm. All they can do is kill you, and if they want to kill you, they will not hesitate to kill all your kith and kin. There is strength in knowing you have nothing to lose. Embrace it and hold it tight.
parker‘s my man.
Underlying the apparent “racism” of the “youngsters”, they are youngster ain’t they or would be with the right melanin skin hue, I thinks is this phenom:
USA! USA! USA!
They’ve had enough of the BS. They have detectors …
Or at large this:Identitaires
They’ve had enough of the BS. They have detectors …
A part of the population’s gotten petulant. Not those you’d think, the “minorities” that is …
The “youngsters” don’t buy it ….
I blame the voters …..
parker you’ll have it hard. A procrustean attitude is of the essence. We’ve had enough of the BS. We have detectors …
USA! USA! USA!
– fixed link –
Underlying the apparent “racism” of the “youngsters”, they are youngster ain’t they or would be with the right melanin skin hue, I thinks is this phenom:
USA! USA! USA!
They’ve had enough of the BS. They have detectors …
link:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/USA-chant-by-Texas-high-school-fans-draws-6032976.php
It’s Idiocracy. Morons who have selective historical knowledge and morality and a raging will to power are roaming the streets and the policing the internet and everyone else is too scared or exhausted or busy to confront them. How much easier it is to scold/punish these racist idiots than to point out that their speech, however repugnant, is still free.
g6log,
I am who i am, and a large extended family stands with me for 3 generations. We know how to grow food and preserve it. We know how to hunt. And, we know how to put a 30 cal on the forehead at 400. Let them come to the far north of flyover country. All they can do is kill, its all they know. We know the lessons of counter insurgencies. We have the will. Unitended Consequences is the way.
g6loq:
Chanting, “USA! USA!” is racism. Celebrating Cinco de Mayo is not. Got it. Effing beaners. And effing Gramscian school administrators, which are the root of the problem.The soon-to-be-men have fortunately developed BS detectors, at least the alphas have.
” . . . it’s been my experience that many people have trouble imagining anything other than the situation that is actually before them.”
Neo, that is spot on. Except I would change to MOST people. Whenever I hear someone say that such and such should be banned and I tell them that would lead to so and so being banned the response is always the same – “Oh, but, that’s different!”
I rarely hear any other response.
Now, Charles, it’s different because All White People Are Baaaad.
sigh
I doubt the SAE boys are particularly prejudiced. I think they’re teenagers who happen to be white, straight males, and they are fed up to the back teeth with the nonstop prejudice and vilification directed at THEM.
So they kicked back. Quelle surprise.
Expect more of this, the more the Thought Police crack down. Humans can only stand so much.
Lost.
The sad fact is that those who want to suppress free speech are in control of almost all meaningful institutions.
Aside from that, it is so easy to convince decent people that the speech that needs protecting is not nice; or could be dangerous.
You could not even organize opposition, because in doing so you would be guilty of a conspiracy against the established order.
One exception. The established order has apparently decided that anti-semitic, or general anti-white speech is healthy when employed by disadvantaged minorities because it airs past sins. I have figured out why misogynist speech when used in rap lyrics is acceptable.
Hate to be such a pessimist; but, I believe that is the case.
Robert Byrd said and did much worse than the SAE guys, and he didn’t get expelled from the US Senate.
You don’t need an amendment protecting speech you agree with.
“a mixture of cowardice and moralism not uncommon”
As a former activist on campus of more recent vintage, I can say that this is still the norm.
It’s not a dead end for Right activists. It’s an opportunity and opening.
Right campus activists only need learn how to calibrate to it like Left campus activists have accomplished in order to make progress.
Eric Says:
March 14th, 2015 at 12:20 pm
“a mixture of cowardice and moralism not uncommon”
As a former activist on campus of more recent vintage, I can say that this is still the norm.
A current overview:
SJW, Vaginas and all that
Beverly Says:
March 13th, 2015 at 10:08 pm
I doubt the SAE boys are particularly prejudiced. I think they’re teenagers who happen to be white, straight males, and they are fed up to the back teeth with the nonstop prejudice and vilification directed at THEM.
Yup! That’s my thesis. Enough with the moron’s petulance:
USA! USA!
They, have had enough of the BS. They have detectors …
Or at large this: Identitaires
They, have had enough of the BS. They have detectors …
We, had enough of the BS we’re detecting …
Soon my brothers …
Racism equals Racial Animus Plus Power
So that means that Hitler wasn’t a racist until he attained power.
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Not to put too fine a point on it, but the obvious solution is to split into two countries. I’m not really sure why this isn’t clear to other people, but everything else is just whistling past the graveyard.
To elaborate on my thesis, if the Left really believed what it says about those who are not in alignment with it, i.e. that they are irredeemable morons, racists and generally uncouth people who produce nothing of value to modern society, the Left would be clamoring for a split into two countries, Leftie-ville and Jesus-land. That they are not is kind of a Hound of the Baskervillles scenario in my mind. The dog that isn’t barking is the one to listen to.
Let us call “pc” what it is, exactly: it is fascism, pure and simple. When will we realize that, and name it expressly. The “progressive” (so-called) left ARE the fascists of our time. We must “punch back twice as hard,” as a wise man has said.
Racism is the belief of inherent genetic superiority of one race over another.
Somehow, bigotry and prejudice no longer apply. Being called a racist means nothing to me as the only thing inherent to all humans is bias. Every person on the face of the earth has bias. Whether they want to admit it or not. Disagreeing with my statement is bias. Accept it and get over it.
You might want to check out the specs on the Samsung ‘Smart TV.’
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2015/0209/Is-your-Samsung-Smart-TV-spying-on-you-Probably.-video
Big Brother is here!
njoriole Says:
March 14th, 2015 at 8:47 pm
We must “punch back twice as hard,” as a wise man has said.
And more:
** Obama: “They Bring a Knife… We Bring a Gun”
** Obama to His Followers: “Get in Their Faces!”
** Obama on ACORN Mobs: “I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry!”
** Obama to His Mercenary Army: “Hit Back Twice As Hard”
** Obama on the private sector: “We talk to these folks… so I know whose ass to kick.“
** Obama to voters: Republican victory would mean “hand to hand combat”
** Obama to lib supporters: “It’s time to Fight for it.”
** Obama to Latino supporters: “Punish your enemies.”
** Obama to supporters: “I’m itching for a fight.”
Obama to UAW mob: “Fight for me!”
For the record because, civility.
Wonkette thinks referring to the record is is acting stupidly and will call you by name on it because, pompous, sanctimonious, condescending, holier than thou and because,
doesn’t have to worry about a HIJAB … for the moment.
The solution is Exit. The solution that BS Inc. proposed.
In the meantime, identify the SJW’s involved in these internet political mobs. Doxx them online and make their lives miserable.
Speaking of making the lives of SJW’s miserable. Behold the fate of the SJW called Adria Richards.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/21/internet-shaming-lindsey-stone-jon-ronson
They, the evil ones, will never let us be, the sane ones to peacefully depart from their evil. Its just who they are they are . That is why they must die. De javu all over again.
“The SAE brothers were in public,…”
Why do you say this? I thought they were in a privately chartered bus.
anonymousse
The “long march through the institutions” has been nowhere more successful than in the Halls of Ivy. There’s a moral in there: If you oppose a principle, it’s less effective to combat the principle directly than it is to replace its defenders and practitioners.
That this was possible in the case of freedom of expression suggests that we relied upon a concentration of forces in assailable points. Note that it has not occurred in the case of firearms. Undertanding the reasons for the contrast could be critical to our hopes for a renaissance of freedom.
Ever support the old definition of marriage being a man and a woman? They’re working hard at making that one a thought crime.
It’s because they’re bigots who can’t handle the diversity of having such a unique institution. Leftists, “Progressives”, whatever they’re calling themselves these days, are everything they claim to hate.
Because their minds are under the sway of the evil one. Our foe here is bigger than man. He the purveyor of deceit.
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You’re just not thinking things through all the way. Do you actually think that SCOTUS is protecting the Constitution? It matters not one whit if Obama turns the high court irretrievably to the left–because the final destruction of the Constitution is already a foregone conclusion based on unchangeable precedent. At the federal level the ratchet turns inexorably leftward. The real problem with a third party is that they would quickly become as corrupt as the existing two. Look at what happened to the Tea Party Patriots if you doubt.
The only (slim) remaining hope is state nullification. If the states can manage to reassert their sovereignty there is hope. The prospects here are bleak, however. The federal government long ago seized supremacy that was never codified in the Constitution. They will not cede it willingly.
Yep. It’s pretty much over.
“…4 current Supreme Court justices would almost certainly hold that OU had a right to close the fraternity and kick out SAE students, because social justice.”
Mr. Dorman:
Not if you look at Snyder V. Phelps, where supposedly conservative Alito was the only justice unable to comprehend the meaning of the 1st Amendment in the 8-1 decision.