You know I was just talking with my mom about Rat Magazine. She was cleaning out stuff in her house and something reminded her of it. I wish we still had copies. What was Rat Magazine? A friend of mine , Tim, in Elementary School had two parents who were journalists. He often had complaints about the school, and they helped him create and publish his own school newspaper independently. I wrote for him a few times, he even gave me a 20-page training packet. I got the PE teacher in trouble for lying about why he made us do square dancing every year. He claimed the principal forced him to do it, which as it turns out, wasn't true. He didn't realize I was going to put what he said in print. My 5th grade teacher came up to me after it was printed and said "David you know the principal doesn't dictate the PE curriculum right?" I shrugged and said I was just quoting what he said. I was 10, I didn't know anything about lesson plans, I didn't even realize the guy was lying. Funny, we never had to do square dancing again. This isn't about me, though Tim is the hero of the story.
Tim was pretty bold for a fifth-grader not only did he secure advertisers for Rat Magazine from local businesses. He would personally hand out the copies, a standard sheet of paper front and back, on the sidewalk after school. Looking back it is insane how angry the teachers got about being criticized by children and how hard they worked to try and shut down the project. As an adult looking back, it was pretty cool that Tim had the passion to do this all at 11 years old. You would think it might even be encouraged. But no, it also led us to realize how stupid are teachers were. One teacher claimed we couldn't distribute copies because we were in a school zone???? and somehow she had a say over everything that happens in school zones. Others would come and rip the copies out of Tim's hand. Next headline? RAT MAGAZINE SEIZED!!!!!! Not surprising his journalist parents weren't too happy to hear about this crackdown on the freedom of the press and people getting physical with their son. This is where it gets nuts.
Tim and his parents got the ACLU to sue the school district pro bono, AND THEY WON! Tim wasn't doing any of this on school time, he was handing it out after school was over, and on the sidewalk that the school doesn't own. You can't exactly rip it out of his hands either. I remember the get-together we all had to celebrate. Mind you, I was just a tag along, I wrote twice and would mostly hang out with people at the meetings. Again Tim is the hero of the story. The teachers couldn't do shit about it after that. Ha! I don't know how this anecdote from my childhood slipped my memory for so long. I think at 11 years old I didn't realize how cool what Tim was doing was and didn't think a lot about it.
Doesn't sound like this would be able to happen elsewhere in the "free world."
What a great story! Tim - and his parents - are heroes. I suspect if I met Tim I'd find a brother in arms. You didn't mention when this happened. I was in high school in the early 1970s and there was an anti-authoritarian streak running through many of my friends. A group of us published an "underground" newspaper freshman year then ended up working on the student newspaper which often had a subversive element.
I can't imagine such a thing happening today. There's too much fear and lack of self-confidence. So here's to Tim, his parents, and Rat Magazine! How can I subscribe?
This could not have happened in the Canada in which I grew up and what many Canadians naively think still exists. The people are waking up, though, if the polls are any indication and the pendulum is swinging.
Thanks for sharing. I think we kids were able to do so much more back then and wanted to do so much more. I think we'd be hard pressed to find the Tims of today but I hope they are out there.
An 11 year old understood it, maybe because of his journalist parents. Today, many adults don’t get it and mainstream media “journalists” and university journalism schools don’t understand the importance of the first amendment, or they fight against the first amendment by supporting censorship.
If you accept as normal: shit in the streets, junkies dying on sidewalks, black clad militants burning and looting, queer pornography in schools, men pretending to be women, a crooked intelligence community lying for FISA warrants, a completely dishonest press and a wide open border being invaded by millions, I guess you don't really give a damn about free speech
You can be left wing, including socially, and support free speech; traditionally, emphasis on free speech was in fact on the left. While the Democrats and social justice types have indeed abandoned their principles, it is not a contradiction to think people should be allowed to crossdress and should also be allowed to speak their minds, even if what they have to say is abhorrent.
There's a difference between crossdressing (a personal choice) and the demands of Trans Rights Activists--demands that *actively* harm biological women.
People have the right to say abhorrent things. They do not have the right to force other people to parrot their abhorrent speech under threat of Cancellation or (as this article describes) jail. Using government power to force people to parrot speech they find abhorrent is authoritarianism at its very worst.
I agree they don't have the right to compelled speech, but they do have the right to exist in public, and people often conflate those two things (the logic along the lines of TRAs are trying to compel speech, ergo we should not allow trans people in society). Fight against the compelled speech, not the people associated with it.
I’m confused. Are there actually people (beyond the minimum number of “kooks” looking for attention on social media) who advocate that trans people should not be allowed to exist? Are there TV hosts, or op-Eds in mass media actually saying that? If so, what do they suggest: imprisonment? Assassination? I read very widely, and have never seen anything like this. OTOH, I’ve seen a lot of trans activists screaming loudly about “being erased”, by which they apparently mean that some folx refuse to use compelled speech (i.e., disagree with them), not that people are advocating killing them.
I have indeed seen such arguments, though typically the line on that would be banning medical transition for everyone (which I think is a terrible idea for reasons I am happy to explain, if you are interested), not imprisonment or murder.
And I think there is a pretty big difference between disagreement/refusal to use compelled speech and legislation such as drag bans, bathroom laws, etc., which are in fact starting to carry the possibility of imprisonment for violations. (The obvious retort being that trans people should just use the bathroom of their biological sex, and the problem with this being that some female to male transitioners do appear to be biological males such that their presence in the women's room would be likely to make them seem like sexual predators, and vice versa)
If you say trans women are men, that's one thing, if you say trans women are men and therefore we should have XYZ legal restrictions on them, that's another.
The problem is that their "right to exist in public" is being interpreted by the Left as a good excuse to compel speech. In fact, to compel far more than just speech.
The "right to exist in public" does not give ANYONE the right to expose their private parts in front of children. In does not give ANYONE the right to stare at naked girls and women against their will. But the Left INSISTS on allowing transwomen to do so by allowing them to enter women's locker rooms without limitation.
The "right to exist in public" does not give ANYONE the right to have continued access to their desired prey after they've been convicted of sexual assault. But the Left INSISTS that transwomen convicted of sexual assault against women should be housed in women's prisons.
So they are not merely trying to compel SPEECH. They are trying to force the population as a whole to LIVE in a compelled way--to play along with transwomen's fantasies, regardless of the negative consequences to individual women and girls.
I can remember a time when most trans people (not cross-dressers, but people who were actually trying to pass) recognized that they had to respect people's boundaries if they wanted any kind of respect themselves. They made a point of being discreet.
Now the whole program is to offend, to terrorize, to make women frightened in ways that women dare not protest at. And NO ONE has "the right to exist in public" when they are actively engaging in such behavior.
I don't think any of the things you are describing are acceptable. If a trans person has to use the locker room, they should be in a stall, and a natal male who raped a woman should never be in a women's prison. What I am bothered by is what's happening to the people who, like you said, just want to live their lives in private, and are now caught in the crossfire because of these awful "activists" who, as far as I am concerned, are the reason why everyone is so angry about this now.
Opposing free speech is not a left vs right thing, it’s an insider vs outsider thing.
When the right was dominant they often ran afoul of the first Amendment. For the last 30 years or so the left has had all the power and the right is on the outside so the proponents of free speech have switched.
It was also crazy scary how readily such a large portion of the population accepted the China Virus lockdowns. That there are so many people who blindly trust government and have zero critical thinking skills is the scariest of all.
They only accept it one way. Many of us are actually ok with Authoritarianism, when it is in our favor. Which is how our freedoms keep getting chipped away. Eventually it will crash and be rebuilt and hopefully reset the freedom clock.
I was shocked at how easily the younger population in Canada accepted the lockdowns and isolated themselves. I held an essential job so not much really changed for me, but for many it was very hard on their mental health and some still haven't recovered. When I was growing up in the 60s I really don't think the people would have accepted such a draconian action by government.
It is true what you say, Celia. But it does bring to mind the pro Jewish genocide public comments and city wide demonstrations of deluded students and millenials since Oct 7. Is it offensive? Yes. Is it hate speech? Yes. Are they imbeciles? Yes. But is it their expressing of their right to free speech? Again, yes. But many commenters here wanted them either kicked out of the country or their schools or both, not criminalizing their speech but close to it.
I agree with you with one exception. Activists on student visas from elsewhere fomenting intimidation, violence, and actively supporting terrorist organizations don’t have that privilege.
Good point. But then that line again appears. This time it’s when is speech intimidation? Especially if the recipient at the receiving end is not intimidated but will fight instead? Saying they want Jews dead - is that violence? And if we outlaw that are we no better than Ireland and Canada? There are cross currents everywhere here. And I don’t pretend to have an answer. Where does free speech end? Now if they are actively supporting Hamas, that is quite clear. Especially so if it’s financial.
It’s a thorny question! An example will suffice: someone saying they “want blacks dead” … how does that sound? Feels different, no? Starts to feel like fomenting violence…
it does. It reminds me of Skokie in the mid '60's - and the American Nazi Party was allowed to march there. Would the KKK be allowed to march in New York City today? Both groups may not expressly say they want death to Jews and blacks, but we know what their organizations stand for.
These aren’t Citizens that I am speaking of. They study here at our pleasure. They have not legally earned and do not receive or deserve the same rights as citizens. Want to become a citizen? Respect the laws of your host country and sincerely put in the effort to become a citizen. Metaphorically, Boundaries are Everything.
So I don’t see the problem. I don’t just mean talk. I mean material support, threats of physical violence and not rhetoric. You know it when you see it. Self defense isn’t an issue as far as I am concerned however the intended goals of the intimidators are a huge factor IMB.
Is open and active support of an ACTUAL terrorist group (as defined by the U.S. government) a free speech issue? Or is it a crime?
Advocating criminal harm is one of those issues that teeters right on the boundary of allowable free speech. And in our jurisprudence, which side of that line it falls on depends largely on what happens afterward. If you tell people they should attack Jews and they go out and do so (as has happened in some cases), that falls on the side of disallowed speech--the incitement of a crime. If you tell people they should kill Jews and no one goes right out and does that, you lucked out--you managed (by no choice of your own) to remain on the free speech side of the line.
But as we've already seen in many other cases, colleges can expel students for any sort of behavior they feel is inconsistent with the college's values. That option has been used consistently over the last ten years to eject conservative students, often for trifling "offenses" on social media that happened years before. Suddenly deciding that option should NOT be used to eject students advocating terrorism and antisemitic violence is hypocritical at best.
Nor should people who live in the U.S. solely because they hold a temporary visa be allowed to be free from the consequences of advocating violence against American citizens and/or in favor of recognized terrorist groups. American citizens can't be ejected (or even jailed unless they are found criminally inciting or materially supporting terrorist groups). But visa holders are merely guests, and if they become bad guests, there is no reason not to see them out the door.
"Kicked out of ... their schools"--Shouting down a speaker you disagree with isn't necessarily illegal, but it should be unacceptable student behavior and should receive consequences from a school, whether the speaker is Charles Murray or Angela Davis. (Truly threatening action, such as what happened at Berkeley last week, should be cause for immediate expulsion.) And it might be easier to listen to Claudine Gay prattle on about students' rights to utter anti-Semitic speech if Harvard weren't so heavy-handed against other kinds of offensive speech, like "misgendering." When Harvard implements the Kalven Principles across the board, I'll rejoice, but selective support of "free speech" is meaningless.
Student expulsion for disallowing guests to speak, for disrupting free speech on campus I am in full agreement with. I am a free speech absolutist. And I agree that had Gay not be known for cancelling out conservative speech on her campus, her stand on the anti semitic rants of students would at least have been consistent.
Why wouldn't you accept it if it helped preserve what your side wants? As long as your side is in power and the free speech of the other side is what is shut down, it's ideal!
And therein lies the problem with moral relativism! When you don’t believe in higher principles, might makes right! And if *your* side is eventually overthrown…then you have nothing to fall back on, and must live according to whatever madness and corruption the *new* lords impose.
Free speech does not exist to protect popular ideas; it exists to protect unpopular ideas. Nobody cares if you argue over whether Italian or Mexican food is better. But if you put up a sticker saying "white lives matter," you can be put in prison for 2 years in England.
Meanwhile, given the college campus fracases recently, calling for the genocide of Jews will "depend on the context." So an actual instance of hate speech will go unpunished (not that I think that should be against the *law*, but if there's one statement that *could* be...)
Maddow is a regime propagandist who constantly spews disinformation during her two minutes hate. She and many others claimed that you won’t get covid if you get jabbed. The Disinformation Governance Board chair Nina Jankowicz is a classic commissar: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/nina-jankowicz-ministry-of-truth-scary-poppins-
Hate speech laws are thought crime laws. If someone commits a crime prosecute them for the crime to the fullest extent of the law not because of their ideology.
Why is “nigger” hate speech but “bitch” isn’t? Why is rape not a hate crime? We all know the answer. I don’t believe in the concept of hate crimes or hate speech. Thought crimes are not illegal but the trend is to make them so. And BTW, “Islamophobia” is not a word, nor is “Transphobia.” As long as we are making up words, I give you “Transapathetic.”
2. Criminalisation for potential crime ("pre-crime").
3. Up to a life sentence for "hate speech."
4. Anyone can file a claim for anything they don't like or claim to have been hurt by, and get money for doing so. Just imagine that floodgate opening.
5. Certain activist groups have asked that it be extended to small platforms with as few as a hundred users, not just the social media giants. I run two forums (one for wetshaving and one for people with CLL) and I would become liable for anything posted there.
If this gets passed then it will be the next government's first job to reverse it.
Many, myself formerly included, view Canada as our quirky northern neighbors, more liberal than us overall but basically sensible. It is frightening to see them go so far so quickly toward leftist dystopia: censorship, MAID (coming soon for minors and the those who are only mentally ill), attempted mass gun confiscation, nationwide anti-religious violence based on official lies... I wonder, do most people there not know about all this, not care, go along with it out of fear, or support it? How would those sorts of things go over here, and will we soon find out firsthand?
The very term, "hate speech" is just a leftist dog-whistle that has been used by the Democratic Party and its supporters to gin up fear.
The Democratic Party is the single greatest threat facing the United States today. They have no respect for the Constitution nor the citizens of the United States. Their sheer, utter disdain for the Bill of Rights is breathtaking.
Before it's too late... and I am not allowed to make it clear:
It makes sense to recognize the concept of 'hate speech'. The problems are the lack of understanding that hate speech is free speech, regardless of how awful it is, and the expansion of 'hate speech' to mean anything Democrats don't like.
It’s Ok when it’s speech but not when it crosses into harassment. Not sure how people enforcing “misgendering” as hate speech justify physically harrassing Jewish students
I HATE raw onions. Always have, always will. If I’m jailed for that hate speech, i sincerely hope the prison will not serve me that offensive vegetable, unless they sauté it in butter!
All true but sadly the First Amendment only means what five Supreme Court justices say it means. If the Democrats get control of the Court through packing and/or retirements, we’ll be in the same situation as the other countries. Such are the wages of sin we’re reaping from the “elite” law schools.
“NOW is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country,” isn’t just an aid to typing students, it’s an important mantra for ALL AMERICANS decided to whom your precious vote should go.
Only candidates who have demonstrated an understanding of the vital role the 1st Amendment, indeed the entire Bill of Rights, plays in our liberty, and has pledged to preserve it, deserve your vote.
Other considerations should be set aside for now because we ALL WILL LOSE EVERYTHING if candidates who don’t respect our liberty win.
Why are we surprised? What did we expect when we rolled over and allowed the novel concept of "hate crime" to be codified? "Hate speech" logically follows.
There is a huge difference between saying something hateful, which is your right, and attacking or killing someone on the basis of that hate, which you should go to prison for.
True, but you should not face a greater penalty just because of your motivation. If I attack someone it shouldn't matter why when it comes to the courts.
G 'n R also had a song along those lines - "I used to love her, but I had to kill her,I knew I'd miss her, so I had to keep her, she's buried right in my backyard" . Good song, but IMO, that's not love - that's a narcissistic who wants to control other people.
The scariest part of this article, just 42 of voters think freedom of information should be protected... It's so ugly that we've reached such a low level of intelligence/education that this is the case.
And now we watch as those same countries tie themselves into knots as they struggle to exclude Jews from those 'protected from hate speech' groups. Just imagine the prisons that would need to be built if every "from the river to the sea" protestor - explicitly calling for the genocide of Jews, the very definition of "incitement"- were prosecuted and jailed under these new hate speech laws.
This is my real concern...they are NOT going to prosecute those people. These laws will be selectively enforced in certain directions. As we have discovered, the bad guys have taken over a lot of big city DAs and the like. So they can pick and choose which laws to enforce. They just need to make sure there is a law they can apply that is basically thought crime and they will be able to legally arrest whomever they choose.
Trump's civil fraud suit in New York is the first time the law, which has been on the books for decades, has been used to punish someone when there was no complaining victim.
From what I understand, the supposed victims, which would be Banks, all said they didn't have an issue with what he did and that most people inflate the value of their property.
Agree that it's great that we have the First Amendment, but it's meaningless without the Second. This is why Britain, Ireland, and Canada don't have a prayer and are rapidly descending into fascism.
The real question is, will the next generation of Americans even have the stones to fight? China and their proxies are laughing as they feed our children fentanyl, hormones, and Hamas. Progressives: China good. Trump bad.
Without free expression, we're not free. The zealots making these decisions, and benefiting from them, are all-powerful, while at the same time making everyone else subjects. I don't believe they're speaking for everyone in the groups they say they represent, but a radicalism that increases division. Opining that a man cannot be a biological woman; objecting to blizzards of curricula that tear down the West as a "colonizer" that must be "abolished"--that's not considered ethnic cleansing, just the essence of justice and goodness; objecting to the weaponization of justice, the refusal to punish crime based on race; or criticizing Palestinian-based anti- semitic "activism" in the West, would be silenced and punished as "hate speech." Responding to actual hate and intimidation would be punished as hateful. That's because Western society and whites are the only "unprotected groups," remarkably convenient that, given Gemini's peek at the future.
I've long held that "we the people" have failed to understand the real elephant in the room: Tech. Last weekends TFP report on Marshall McLuhan convinced me absolutely. The most simple exploration of his ideas immediately explains much of the madness we witness and discuss here. Turning the spotlight on ourselves demands a "cold turkey" revaluation of our personal relationship to Tech. It changes the culture and the individual. Compounding the problem is the seizure and weaponization (Gemini) of Tech as a means of manipulation and control by fascist criminal financiers and their willing accomplices in bureaucratic surveillance government. An illustration I find helpful is the study of foxes. Kits held and stroked by human beings within two generations become tame and change behaviors and fur color. They are foxes in name only. Fascism is on the rise and "Big Tech" is its willing accomplice.
Canada legislated, repealed (thank God), and almost re-legislated another law so broad in its wording as to be simultaneously meaningless and terrifying in its applicability. The chronically online among us north of the 49th are familiar with the Canada Human Rights Act Section 13(1) pasted below.
> It is a discriminatory practice for a person or a group of persons acting in concert to communicate telephonically or to cause to be so communicated, repeatedly, in whole or in part by means of the facilities of a telecommunication undertaking within the legislative authority of Parliament, any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.
“Any matter that is likely to expose … hatred or contempt.” Think about the myriad of cases where this could be used. You theoretically could have been charged under this law by hosting a watch party of “American History X”, “Schindler’s List”, hell, even the “Chapelle Show” with how things are.
So all the bullying I endured throughout like 10 years of public school innthe 70’s and 80’s I can now accuse those people of hate crimes bc it causes a certain amount of low self esteem (you learn to deal and thrive etc) but you all know what I mean. What about a significant other saying they left you bc you were too fat? Too skinny? Too religious? Or you’re a devout Jewish family and you don’t want your kid staying over friends house bc they’re devout Catholics? And you know people get OFFENDED. No one has a pair of you know what- THAT is the problem. They raised an entire generation to believe that their own personal fellings matter more than ANYTHING. Spare me and out on a pair of big girl panties. The world is going to eat you up and spit you out and no laws will fix human nature.
EVERY kid is being raised to believe they are the center of the universe. No one else matters and Heaven help anyone who gets in their way. Our country is going to implode.
You know I was just talking with my mom about Rat Magazine. She was cleaning out stuff in her house and something reminded her of it. I wish we still had copies. What was Rat Magazine? A friend of mine , Tim, in Elementary School had two parents who were journalists. He often had complaints about the school, and they helped him create and publish his own school newspaper independently. I wrote for him a few times, he even gave me a 20-page training packet. I got the PE teacher in trouble for lying about why he made us do square dancing every year. He claimed the principal forced him to do it, which as it turns out, wasn't true. He didn't realize I was going to put what he said in print. My 5th grade teacher came up to me after it was printed and said "David you know the principal doesn't dictate the PE curriculum right?" I shrugged and said I was just quoting what he said. I was 10, I didn't know anything about lesson plans, I didn't even realize the guy was lying. Funny, we never had to do square dancing again. This isn't about me, though Tim is the hero of the story.
Tim was pretty bold for a fifth-grader not only did he secure advertisers for Rat Magazine from local businesses. He would personally hand out the copies, a standard sheet of paper front and back, on the sidewalk after school. Looking back it is insane how angry the teachers got about being criticized by children and how hard they worked to try and shut down the project. As an adult looking back, it was pretty cool that Tim had the passion to do this all at 11 years old. You would think it might even be encouraged. But no, it also led us to realize how stupid are teachers were. One teacher claimed we couldn't distribute copies because we were in a school zone???? and somehow she had a say over everything that happens in school zones. Others would come and rip the copies out of Tim's hand. Next headline? RAT MAGAZINE SEIZED!!!!!! Not surprising his journalist parents weren't too happy to hear about this crackdown on the freedom of the press and people getting physical with their son. This is where it gets nuts.
Tim and his parents got the ACLU to sue the school district pro bono, AND THEY WON! Tim wasn't doing any of this on school time, he was handing it out after school was over, and on the sidewalk that the school doesn't own. You can't exactly rip it out of his hands either. I remember the get-together we all had to celebrate. Mind you, I was just a tag along, I wrote twice and would mostly hang out with people at the meetings. Again Tim is the hero of the story. The teachers couldn't do shit about it after that. Ha! I don't know how this anecdote from my childhood slipped my memory for so long. I think at 11 years old I didn't realize how cool what Tim was doing was and didn't think a lot about it.
Doesn't sound like this would be able to happen elsewhere in the "free world."
America is in fact, quite exceptional.
What a great story! Tim - and his parents - are heroes. I suspect if I met Tim I'd find a brother in arms. You didn't mention when this happened. I was in high school in the early 1970s and there was an anti-authoritarian streak running through many of my friends. A group of us published an "underground" newspaper freshman year then ended up working on the student newspaper which often had a subversive element.
I can't imagine such a thing happening today. There's too much fear and lack of self-confidence. So here's to Tim, his parents, and Rat Magazine! How can I subscribe?
This could not have happened in the Canada in which I grew up and what many Canadians naively think still exists. The people are waking up, though, if the polls are any indication and the pendulum is swinging.
Thanks for sharing. I think we kids were able to do so much more back then and wanted to do so much more. I think we'd be hard pressed to find the Tims of today but I hope they are out there.
An 11 year old understood it, maybe because of his journalist parents. Today, many adults don’t get it and mainstream media “journalists” and university journalism schools don’t understand the importance of the first amendment, or they fight against the first amendment by supporting censorship.
The scariest part of this scary anti-free-speech development is how readily such a large portion of the population accepts it.
If you accept as normal: shit in the streets, junkies dying on sidewalks, black clad militants burning and looting, queer pornography in schools, men pretending to be women, a crooked intelligence community lying for FISA warrants, a completely dishonest press and a wide open border being invaded by millions, I guess you don't really give a damn about free speech
You can be left wing, including socially, and support free speech; traditionally, emphasis on free speech was in fact on the left. While the Democrats and social justice types have indeed abandoned their principles, it is not a contradiction to think people should be allowed to crossdress and should also be allowed to speak their minds, even if what they have to say is abhorrent.
There's a difference between crossdressing (a personal choice) and the demands of Trans Rights Activists--demands that *actively* harm biological women.
People have the right to say abhorrent things. They do not have the right to force other people to parrot their abhorrent speech under threat of Cancellation or (as this article describes) jail. Using government power to force people to parrot speech they find abhorrent is authoritarianism at its very worst.
I agree they don't have the right to compelled speech, but they do have the right to exist in public, and people often conflate those two things (the logic along the lines of TRAs are trying to compel speech, ergo we should not allow trans people in society). Fight against the compelled speech, not the people associated with it.
I’m confused. Are there actually people (beyond the minimum number of “kooks” looking for attention on social media) who advocate that trans people should not be allowed to exist? Are there TV hosts, or op-Eds in mass media actually saying that? If so, what do they suggest: imprisonment? Assassination? I read very widely, and have never seen anything like this. OTOH, I’ve seen a lot of trans activists screaming loudly about “being erased”, by which they apparently mean that some folx refuse to use compelled speech (i.e., disagree with them), not that people are advocating killing them.
I have indeed seen such arguments, though typically the line on that would be banning medical transition for everyone (which I think is a terrible idea for reasons I am happy to explain, if you are interested), not imprisonment or murder.
And I think there is a pretty big difference between disagreement/refusal to use compelled speech and legislation such as drag bans, bathroom laws, etc., which are in fact starting to carry the possibility of imprisonment for violations. (The obvious retort being that trans people should just use the bathroom of their biological sex, and the problem with this being that some female to male transitioners do appear to be biological males such that their presence in the women's room would be likely to make them seem like sexual predators, and vice versa)
If you say trans women are men, that's one thing, if you say trans women are men and therefore we should have XYZ legal restrictions on them, that's another.
The problem is that their "right to exist in public" is being interpreted by the Left as a good excuse to compel speech. In fact, to compel far more than just speech.
The "right to exist in public" does not give ANYONE the right to expose their private parts in front of children. In does not give ANYONE the right to stare at naked girls and women against their will. But the Left INSISTS on allowing transwomen to do so by allowing them to enter women's locker rooms without limitation.
The "right to exist in public" does not give ANYONE the right to have continued access to their desired prey after they've been convicted of sexual assault. But the Left INSISTS that transwomen convicted of sexual assault against women should be housed in women's prisons.
So they are not merely trying to compel SPEECH. They are trying to force the population as a whole to LIVE in a compelled way--to play along with transwomen's fantasies, regardless of the negative consequences to individual women and girls.
I can remember a time when most trans people (not cross-dressers, but people who were actually trying to pass) recognized that they had to respect people's boundaries if they wanted any kind of respect themselves. They made a point of being discreet.
Now the whole program is to offend, to terrorize, to make women frightened in ways that women dare not protest at. And NO ONE has "the right to exist in public" when they are actively engaging in such behavior.
I don't think any of the things you are describing are acceptable. If a trans person has to use the locker room, they should be in a stall, and a natal male who raped a woman should never be in a women's prison. What I am bothered by is what's happening to the people who, like you said, just want to live their lives in private, and are now caught in the crossfire because of these awful "activists" who, as far as I am concerned, are the reason why everyone is so angry about this now.
Opposing free speech is not a left vs right thing, it’s an insider vs outsider thing.
When the right was dominant they often ran afoul of the first Amendment. For the last 30 years or so the left has had all the power and the right is on the outside so the proponents of free speech have switched.
Agreed, and we see this on both sides now because we are so polarized by region- massive abuses in both heavily blue and heavily red areas.
🪒🛎️
It was also crazy scary how readily such a large portion of the population accepted the China Virus lockdowns. That there are so many people who blindly trust government and have zero critical thinking skills is the scariest of all.
Plenty of folks think calling COVID "the China Virus" constitutes hate speech. Thank goodness for 1A.
No China hate from me - I love me some Orange Beef or General Tso's.
For those folks that think that though, yes, thank goodness for the 1A, but I'm more thankful for the backstop that is the 2A.
Can you even name General Tso in PRC? I found you can't even say Manchuria in PRC, you have to say "North East."
We definitely need both.
Yes. Prior to Covid I believed America and Americans were exceptional.
Now I do not.
My heart hurts every time I hear "the land of the free and the home of the brave".
Feminist America is neither.
They only accept it one way. Many of us are actually ok with Authoritarianism, when it is in our favor. Which is how our freedoms keep getting chipped away. Eventually it will crash and be rebuilt and hopefully reset the freedom clock.
History is not full of many examples of resetting the freedom clock. Generally freedom decays.
I was shocked at how easily the younger population in Canada accepted the lockdowns and isolated themselves. I held an essential job so not much really changed for me, but for many it was very hard on their mental health and some still haven't recovered. When I was growing up in the 60s I really don't think the people would have accepted such a draconian action by government.
It is true what you say, Celia. But it does bring to mind the pro Jewish genocide public comments and city wide demonstrations of deluded students and millenials since Oct 7. Is it offensive? Yes. Is it hate speech? Yes. Are they imbeciles? Yes. But is it their expressing of their right to free speech? Again, yes. But many commenters here wanted them either kicked out of the country or their schools or both, not criminalizing their speech but close to it.
I agree with you with one exception. Activists on student visas from elsewhere fomenting intimidation, violence, and actively supporting terrorist organizations don’t have that privilege.
Good point. But then that line again appears. This time it’s when is speech intimidation? Especially if the recipient at the receiving end is not intimidated but will fight instead? Saying they want Jews dead - is that violence? And if we outlaw that are we no better than Ireland and Canada? There are cross currents everywhere here. And I don’t pretend to have an answer. Where does free speech end? Now if they are actively supporting Hamas, that is quite clear. Especially so if it’s financial.
“Saying they want Jews dead - is that violence?”
It’s a thorny question! An example will suffice: someone saying they “want blacks dead” … how does that sound? Feels different, no? Starts to feel like fomenting violence…
it does. It reminds me of Skokie in the mid '60's - and the American Nazi Party was allowed to march there. Would the KKK be allowed to march in New York City today? Both groups may not expressly say they want death to Jews and blacks, but we know what their organizations stand for.
These aren’t Citizens that I am speaking of. They study here at our pleasure. They have not legally earned and do not receive or deserve the same rights as citizens. Want to become a citizen? Respect the laws of your host country and sincerely put in the effort to become a citizen. Metaphorically, Boundaries are Everything.
So I don’t see the problem. I don’t just mean talk. I mean material support, threats of physical violence and not rhetoric. You know it when you see it. Self defense isn’t an issue as far as I am concerned however the intended goals of the intimidators are a huge factor IMB.
Is open and active support of an ACTUAL terrorist group (as defined by the U.S. government) a free speech issue? Or is it a crime?
Advocating criminal harm is one of those issues that teeters right on the boundary of allowable free speech. And in our jurisprudence, which side of that line it falls on depends largely on what happens afterward. If you tell people they should attack Jews and they go out and do so (as has happened in some cases), that falls on the side of disallowed speech--the incitement of a crime. If you tell people they should kill Jews and no one goes right out and does that, you lucked out--you managed (by no choice of your own) to remain on the free speech side of the line.
But as we've already seen in many other cases, colleges can expel students for any sort of behavior they feel is inconsistent with the college's values. That option has been used consistently over the last ten years to eject conservative students, often for trifling "offenses" on social media that happened years before. Suddenly deciding that option should NOT be used to eject students advocating terrorism and antisemitic violence is hypocritical at best.
Nor should people who live in the U.S. solely because they hold a temporary visa be allowed to be free from the consequences of advocating violence against American citizens and/or in favor of recognized terrorist groups. American citizens can't be ejected (or even jailed unless they are found criminally inciting or materially supporting terrorist groups). But visa holders are merely guests, and if they become bad guests, there is no reason not to see them out the door.
"Kicked out of ... their schools"--Shouting down a speaker you disagree with isn't necessarily illegal, but it should be unacceptable student behavior and should receive consequences from a school, whether the speaker is Charles Murray or Angela Davis. (Truly threatening action, such as what happened at Berkeley last week, should be cause for immediate expulsion.) And it might be easier to listen to Claudine Gay prattle on about students' rights to utter anti-Semitic speech if Harvard weren't so heavy-handed against other kinds of offensive speech, like "misgendering." When Harvard implements the Kalven Principles across the board, I'll rejoice, but selective support of "free speech" is meaningless.
Student expulsion for disallowing guests to speak, for disrupting free speech on campus I am in full agreement with. I am a free speech absolutist. And I agree that had Gay not be known for cancelling out conservative speech on her campus, her stand on the anti semitic rants of students would at least have been consistent.
Yes!!! Harassment and shouting down others from their right to speak is not “free speech”
Indoctrination is most effective when it starts at a young age.
Why wouldn't you accept it if it helped preserve what your side wants? As long as your side is in power and the free speech of the other side is what is shut down, it's ideal!
And therein lies the problem with moral relativism! When you don’t believe in higher principles, might makes right! And if *your* side is eventually overthrown…then you have nothing to fall back on, and must live according to whatever madness and corruption the *new* lords impose.
Free speech does not exist to protect popular ideas; it exists to protect unpopular ideas. Nobody cares if you argue over whether Italian or Mexican food is better. But if you put up a sticker saying "white lives matter," you can be put in prison for 2 years in England.
Meanwhile, given the college campus fracases recently, calling for the genocide of Jews will "depend on the context." So an actual instance of hate speech will go unpunished (not that I think that should be against the *law*, but if there's one statement that *could* be...)
"We don't have the freedom of speech to talk about the weather. We have the first amendment so we can say some very controversial things." - Ron Paul.
God forbid you misgender someone, even if by accident.
Maddow is a regime propagandist who constantly spews disinformation during her two minutes hate. She and many others claimed that you won’t get covid if you get jabbed. The Disinformation Governance Board chair Nina Jankowicz is a classic commissar: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/nina-jankowicz-ministry-of-truth-scary-poppins-
Trump is the Emmanuel Goldstein of the United States...
For half the US, Trump is that guy.
For the other half, it is George Soros.
Walt Kelly got it right.
“We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us”
Not quite since Emmanuel Goldstein’s crime is offending The Party.
Soros doesn’t upset the establishment, just working class voters.
Trump upsets the establishment. It’s one of his few redeeming qualities.
Restriction on "Hate speech" is like "Islamophobia" in that it only exists to stifle speech. 100% contrived and absolutely not needed.
Hate speech laws are thought crime laws. If someone commits a crime prosecute them for the crime to the fullest extent of the law not because of their ideology.
Why is “nigger” hate speech but “bitch” isn’t? Why is rape not a hate crime? We all know the answer. I don’t believe in the concept of hate crimes or hate speech. Thought crimes are not illegal but the trend is to make them so. And BTW, “Islamophobia” is not a word, nor is “Transphobia.” As long as we are making up words, I give you “Transapathetic.”
Are the “Newcomers” now to be called “Transnationals”?
Bullet points about the Canadian legislation:
1. Retrospective application of a new law.
2. Criminalisation for potential crime ("pre-crime").
3. Up to a life sentence for "hate speech."
4. Anyone can file a claim for anything they don't like or claim to have been hurt by, and get money for doing so. Just imagine that floodgate opening.
5. Certain activist groups have asked that it be extended to small platforms with as few as a hundred users, not just the social media giants. I run two forums (one for wetshaving and one for people with CLL) and I would become liable for anything posted there.
If this gets passed then it will be the next government's first job to reverse it.
6. Your accuser is allowed to remain anonymous.
I hope wetshaving is something other than what it sounds like?
Ha! Good point. For me it is all about using straight razors, and in the usual place, not anywhere exotic.
Many, myself formerly included, view Canada as our quirky northern neighbors, more liberal than us overall but basically sensible. It is frightening to see them go so far so quickly toward leftist dystopia: censorship, MAID (coming soon for minors and the those who are only mentally ill), attempted mass gun confiscation, nationwide anti-religious violence based on official lies... I wonder, do most people there not know about all this, not care, go along with it out of fear, or support it? How would those sorts of things go over here, and will we soon find out firsthand?
And even worse still: accusers can be paid up to C$20,000 by the “hater”. Hmmmmmm, what could possibly go wrong with that?!
Yes, $20k to the person who took offense, and $50k to the government who have a giant deficit of their own making to fill.
The very term, "hate speech" is just a leftist dog-whistle that has been used by the Democratic Party and its supporters to gin up fear.
The Democratic Party is the single greatest threat facing the United States today. They have no respect for the Constitution nor the citizens of the United States. Their sheer, utter disdain for the Bill of Rights is breathtaking.
Before it's too late... and I am not allowed to make it clear:
I HATE the Democratic Party.
I HATE Joe Biden and his administration.
It makes sense to recognize the concept of 'hate speech'. The problems are the lack of understanding that hate speech is free speech, regardless of how awful it is, and the expansion of 'hate speech' to mean anything Democrats don't like.
It’s Ok when it’s speech but not when it crosses into harassment. Not sure how people enforcing “misgendering” as hate speech justify physically harrassing Jewish students
I HATE raw onions. Always have, always will. If I’m jailed for that hate speech, i sincerely hope the prison will not serve me that offensive vegetable, unless they sauté it in butter!
I think the Democrats have company when you say 'they have no respect for the Constitution'.
/wisconsinwatch.org/2023/08/did-donald-trump-suggest-rules-in-the-constitution-could-be-terminated-in-response-to-election-frau
All true but sadly the First Amendment only means what five Supreme Court justices say it means. If the Democrats get control of the Court through packing and/or retirements, we’ll be in the same situation as the other countries. Such are the wages of sin we’re reaping from the “elite” law schools.
Disinformation Governance Board -> Straight outta 1984
“NOW is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country,” isn’t just an aid to typing students, it’s an important mantra for ALL AMERICANS decided to whom your precious vote should go.
Only candidates who have demonstrated an understanding of the vital role the 1st Amendment, indeed the entire Bill of Rights, plays in our liberty, and has pledged to preserve it, deserve your vote.
Other considerations should be set aside for now because we ALL WILL LOSE EVERYTHING if candidates who don’t respect our liberty win.
This is exactly what I have been thinking. FREE SPEECH should be the #1 issue for U.S. voters in 2024.
Why are we surprised? What did we expect when we rolled over and allowed the novel concept of "hate crime" to be codified? "Hate speech" logically follows.
There is a huge difference between saying something hateful, which is your right, and attacking or killing someone on the basis of that hate, which you should go to prison for.
You should go to prison for the act, not for the hate.
Me: Yes, your Honor, I killed him. But I did not hate him.
Judge: In that case you get 10 years instead of life.
Therein lies the fallacy of "hate" crimes.
I see your point. I still think hate crimes are a useful category in the sense that understanding the motivation for a crime is useful, though.
True, but you should not face a greater penalty just because of your motivation. If I attack someone it shouldn't matter why when it comes to the courts.
A lot of killings occur where you live because the murderer *liked* their victim?
"Mercy killings" - an old man shoots or smothers his terminally ill wife to prevent her from suffering.
Sza sings: "I just killed my ex, I still love him though." Many killings stem from "love." See 15 Motives for Murder by Bryn Donovan: https://www.bryndonovan.com/2022/02/16/why-do-people-kill-15-motives-for-murder/
G 'n R also had a song along those lines - "I used to love her, but I had to kill her,I knew I'd miss her, so I had to keep her, she's buried right in my backyard" . Good song, but IMO, that's not love - that's a narcissistic who wants to control other people.
The scariest part of this article, just 42 of voters think freedom of information should be protected... It's so ugly that we've reached such a low level of intelligence/education that this is the case.
And now we watch as those same countries tie themselves into knots as they struggle to exclude Jews from those 'protected from hate speech' groups. Just imagine the prisons that would need to be built if every "from the river to the sea" protestor - explicitly calling for the genocide of Jews, the very definition of "incitement"- were prosecuted and jailed under these new hate speech laws.
This is gonna be fun....
It's all in who defines what hate is. And you know it'll only be defined to protect certain people and not others.
This is my real concern...they are NOT going to prosecute those people. These laws will be selectively enforced in certain directions. As we have discovered, the bad guys have taken over a lot of big city DAs and the like. So they can pick and choose which laws to enforce. They just need to make sure there is a law they can apply that is basically thought crime and they will be able to legally arrest whomever they choose.
Trump's civil fraud suit in New York is the first time the law, which has been on the books for decades, has been used to punish someone when there was no complaining victim.
From what I understand, the supposed victims, which would be Banks, all said they didn't have an issue with what he did and that most people inflate the value of their property.
The Babylon Bee had a headline to the effect: Couple charged with fraud for listing their home for $700,000 and then selling it for $675,000.
New York City real estate moguls should be shaking in their boots.
Agree that it's great that we have the First Amendment, but it's meaningless without the Second. This is why Britain, Ireland, and Canada don't have a prayer and are rapidly descending into fascism.
The real question is, will the next generation of Americans even have the stones to fight? China and their proxies are laughing as they feed our children fentanyl, hormones, and Hamas. Progressives: China good. Trump bad.
Without free expression, we're not free. The zealots making these decisions, and benefiting from them, are all-powerful, while at the same time making everyone else subjects. I don't believe they're speaking for everyone in the groups they say they represent, but a radicalism that increases division. Opining that a man cannot be a biological woman; objecting to blizzards of curricula that tear down the West as a "colonizer" that must be "abolished"--that's not considered ethnic cleansing, just the essence of justice and goodness; objecting to the weaponization of justice, the refusal to punish crime based on race; or criticizing Palestinian-based anti- semitic "activism" in the West, would be silenced and punished as "hate speech." Responding to actual hate and intimidation would be punished as hateful. That's because Western society and whites are the only "unprotected groups," remarkably convenient that, given Gemini's peek at the future.
I've long held that "we the people" have failed to understand the real elephant in the room: Tech. Last weekends TFP report on Marshall McLuhan convinced me absolutely. The most simple exploration of his ideas immediately explains much of the madness we witness and discuss here. Turning the spotlight on ourselves demands a "cold turkey" revaluation of our personal relationship to Tech. It changes the culture and the individual. Compounding the problem is the seizure and weaponization (Gemini) of Tech as a means of manipulation and control by fascist criminal financiers and their willing accomplices in bureaucratic surveillance government. An illustration I find helpful is the study of foxes. Kits held and stroked by human beings within two generations become tame and change behaviors and fur color. They are foxes in name only. Fascism is on the rise and "Big Tech" is its willing accomplice.
Canada legislated, repealed (thank God), and almost re-legislated another law so broad in its wording as to be simultaneously meaningless and terrifying in its applicability. The chronically online among us north of the 49th are familiar with the Canada Human Rights Act Section 13(1) pasted below.
> It is a discriminatory practice for a person or a group of persons acting in concert to communicate telephonically or to cause to be so communicated, repeatedly, in whole or in part by means of the facilities of a telecommunication undertaking within the legislative authority of Parliament, any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.
“Any matter that is likely to expose … hatred or contempt.” Think about the myriad of cases where this could be used. You theoretically could have been charged under this law by hosting a watch party of “American History X”, “Schindler’s List”, hell, even the “Chapelle Show” with how things are.
So all the bullying I endured throughout like 10 years of public school innthe 70’s and 80’s I can now accuse those people of hate crimes bc it causes a certain amount of low self esteem (you learn to deal and thrive etc) but you all know what I mean. What about a significant other saying they left you bc you were too fat? Too skinny? Too religious? Or you’re a devout Jewish family and you don’t want your kid staying over friends house bc they’re devout Catholics? And you know people get OFFENDED. No one has a pair of you know what- THAT is the problem. They raised an entire generation to believe that their own personal fellings matter more than ANYTHING. Spare me and out on a pair of big girl panties. The world is going to eat you up and spit you out and no laws will fix human nature.
EVERY kid is being raised to believe they are the center of the universe. No one else matters and Heaven help anyone who gets in their way. Our country is going to implode.