Some Common Sense About Free Speech From Bill Maher...

[Lord Jim]

‘The Liberals’ Version of Book Burning’: Bill Maher Goes Off on Berkeley Over Coulter Backlash



During tonight’s broadcast of HBO’s Real Time, host Bill Maher weighed in on the recent flap surrounding Berkeley’s decision to cancel conservative author Ann Coulter’s scheduled April 27th speech.

“Berkeley used to be the cradle of free speech,” he stated. “And now it’s just the cradle for f*cking babies!”

The comedian lit into not just Berkeley, but other colleges across the nation, for shutting down speakers who don’t say “exactly what liberals want to hear.”

Maher added, “I feel like this is the liberals’ version of book burning, and it’s got to stop.”

The Real Time host also took issue with Democrats like Howard Dean claiming that hate speech isn’t protected by the First Amendment. “Yes it is,” Maher exclaimed.

S.E. Cupp agreed with Maher, saying that college students need to realize that in the real world there are no “safe spaces.”

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/the-liberals ... -backlash/

[Crackpot]

Maher and common sense don't often cross paths. I would guess this has more to do with the fact that she's his buddy than any seance of moral conviction.

[Lord Jim]

seance of moral conviction.

So to find moral conviction, he'd have to hire a medium, get a group of people to hold hands around a table in a dark room, and try to summon it from The Great Beyond?

[Crackpot]

Sounds about right








(At least fucking autocorrect made a funny that sort of worked with what I was trying to say)

[BoSoxGal]

This is another of those fascinating examples of how human beings can see the same thing in such remarkably different ways . . . I find a lot of common sense in what Maher brings to the table, and oftentimes his conservative guests and liberal guests find common ground in his common sense points.

As to the OP; I find Ann Coulter to be revolting, but I'm offended by this kind of liberal intolerance myself. I bumped up against it several times in my college experience years ago, but clearly it's gotten much worse.

However, I also see value in limiting hate speech - as the Germans have done since the fall of Nazism.

[Lord Jim]

(At least fucking autocorrect made a funny that sort of worked with what I was trying to say)

The thing that I don't get about auto correct, (and I don't use it because I don't even own a "smart" phone, but from everything I see and hear about it, this seems to be the case) is why is it seemingly programed much of the time to "correct" to more obscure and less used words (like "seance") rather than to a much more common and frequently used word (like "sense")

Did the programmers just set it up to deliberately fuck with people?

[Econoline]

Robert Reich (yes, Robert Reich!) last Wednesday on Facebook:

• Today, officials at the University of California, Berkeley, where I’m a professor, canceled a planned speech by Ann Coulter. They cited safety concerns. In a letter to a campus Republican group that invited Coulter to speak, university officials said that they made the decision to cancel Coulter’s appearance after assessing the violence that flared on campus in February, when the same college Republican group invited right-wing provocateur and Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos to speak.
  
  This is a grave mistake. Coulter should be allowed to speak. How can students understand the vapidity of Coulter’s arguments without being allowed to hear her make them, and question her about them?
  
  It’s one thing to cancel an address at the last moment because university and local police are not prepared to contain violence – as occurred, sadly, with Yiannopoulos. It’s another thing entirely to cancel an address before it is given, when police have adequate time to prepare for such eventualities.
  
  Free speech is what universities are all about. If universities don’t do everything possible to foster and protect it, they aren’t universities. They’re playpens.

[Guinevere]

X2

Don't blame it on "liberals." I don't agree with that decision and neither do many of my brothers and sisters. Blame it on UC Berkeley. They made the decision, they have to live with the consequences.

[Burning Petard]

This is a funny/peculiar issue. IMNSHO, it gets right down to the basics of all freedoms and human rights. The current accepted practice seems to be they only deserve to be practiced and exercised as long your free actions do not make me uncomfortable. A long time ago in some class some judicial authority figure was paraphrased as stating that freedom existed only where you lived far enough away from your neighbor that you could not hear his dog bark.

Rights in conflict. Do I have the 'right' to never hear any opinions that make me uncomfortable? Some organizations say yes, and provide 'safe zones' where no one will ever be offended--and 'warnings' about trigger words that might upset the most fragile ego potentially present. An even longer time ago some old Greek white guy philosopher said vice is virtue carried to excess. This concern with safe zones and trigger words seems to me to be taking FDR's 'freedom from fear' way beyond a point of excess.

This evening on the news I watched some talking heads discussing the Berkley University invitation to Ann Coulter. A student newspaper editorial from Wellesley College was quoted, distinguishing between legitimate free speech, which is always exercised to enhance and support the suppressed, and 'hate speech' which must be prohibited. (the editorial definition, not mine)

Sorry. I support limits on hate speech only to the extent such speech can be subsumed under the traditional free speech metaphorical prohibition of shouting FIRE ! in a crowded theater. "Free speech' as an American freedom, exists precisely to permit phony, false, stupid speech. The remedy for such is speaking in opposition, not just making noise so the offending party cannot be heard. The Sedition Act of 1798 was repealed under President Jefferson. Even slander is not illegal--you just have to be prepared to pay the price of its consequences in civil court.

Please note this does not mean I personally believe there are no limits on polite civil discourse.

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