Daily Archives: May 6, 2017

Vice Media co-founder and conservative speaker Gavin McInnes reads a speech written by Ann Coulter to a crowd during a conservative rally in Berkeley, Calif., on April 27. Coulter canceled a planned appearance at the University of California, Berkeley, saying she had lost the backing of the groups that had sponsored her talk. Josh Edelson /AFP/Getty Images hide caption

Vice Media co-founder and conservative speaker Gavin McInnes reads a speech written by Ann Coulter to a crowd during a conservative rally in Berkeley, Calif., on April 27. Coulter canceled a planned appearance at the University of California, Berkeley, saying she had lost the backing of the groups that had sponsored her talk.

On college campuses, outrage over provocative speakers sometimes turns violent.

It's becoming a pattern on campuses around the country. A speaker is invited, often by a conservative student group. Other students oppose the speaker, and maybe they protest. If the speech happens, the speaker is heckled. Sometimes there's violence.

In other cases as with conservative commentator Ann Coulter at the University of California, Berkeley last week the event is called off.

Now, a handful of states, including Illinois, Tennessee, Colorado and Arizona, have passed or introduced legislation designed to prevent these incidents from happening. The bills differ from state to state, but they're generally based on a model written by the Goldwater Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Arizona.

The model bill would require public universities to remain neutral on political issues, prevent them from disinviting speakers, and impose penalties for students and others who interfere with these speakers.

Attorney Jim Manley, who co-wrote the bill, says the institutional neutrality provision serves as a reminder to public universities that they are funded by taxpayers, who shouldn't be forced to subsidize speech that they disagree with. He says the other provisions are important because the students who have engaged in these protests have not been adequately disciplined by universities.

"We think those are incredibly important because what we've seen is that universities haven't really taken this seriously and discipline students who engage in these sorts of belligerent protests that are designed not to present an alternative viewpoint, but to shut down the speaker," Manley says.

In a Wall Street Journal column, Stanford University professor Peter Berkowitz echoes this point by arguing universities are slow to shut down these protests because they often want to protect minority groups who may be offended by a provocative speaker.

"The yawning gap between universities' role as citadels of free inquiry and the ugly reality of campus censorship is often the fault of administrators who share the progressive belief that universities must restrict speech to protect the sensitivities of minorities and women," Berkowitz writes. "They often capitulate to the loudest and angriest demonstrators just to get controversies off the front page."

The goal of this model bill is to protect free speech on campus broadly, Manley says, so it provides protections for both invited speakers and students who want to protest. He says the discipline provisions work by shutting down those activities that are designed to prevent an exchange of ideas.

"If I started yelling every time you asked a question, that wouldn't be a very good way to have a conversation," Manley says. "And that's basically what's happening with these shout-downs and violent protests on campus, and those are the sorts of things that our bill goes after and tries to prevent."

North Carolina is one of the states considering a campus free speech bill, but state Rep. Verla Insko, a Democrat, criticized the legislation as an unnecessary "regulation of a constitutional right."

Manley says the legislature's job is to protect constitutional rights, which is what this bill is designed to do. He argues collaboration between legislatures and universities is needed to protect free speech on campus.

"Even if the university is a doing a fine job today, that doesn't mean that there's no role for the legislature to play here," he says. "And if the university is truly committed to protecting free expression, then it should be a collaborative exercise between the legislature and the university to create a piece of legislation that works for everybody."

Critics say this kind of legislation could hinder a university's ability to regulate hate speech on campus, and Manley says this is possible because hate speech is not well-defined in the law.

"The point of having free speech protection in the Constitution is to protect unpopular ideas," Manley says. "We don't need the First Amendment for ideas that everybody agrees with. We need to protect minority views, even if those views are repugnant to most people, and maybe especially if those views are repugnant."

Read the original:
States Consider Legislation To Protect Free Speech On Campus - NPR

Chinas market economy with socialist characteristics rose from the ashes of Mao Zedongs failed experiments with central planning. Under that repressive regime, private enterprise was outlawed and individuals become wards of the state. When Deng Xiaoping became Chinas paramount leader, he abandoned Maos class struggle as the centerpiece of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and embarked on economic liberalization. There was hope that greater freedom in trading goods and services would also lead to a freer market in ideas.

That hope was dashed when troops cracked down on protesters in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. Dengs famous Southern Tour in 1992 resumed economic reformand China has become the worlds largest trading nationbut protectionism in the market for ideas remains intact. Under President Xi Jinping, who advocates globalization but has cracked down on the free flow of information, China has become less free.

In the just released World Press Freedom Index, published by Paris-based Reporters sans Frontires (RSF), China is ranked 176 out of 180 countries, just a few notches above North Koreaand President Xi is referred to as the planets leading censor and press freedom predator. In preparation for the 19th CCP Congress later this year, there has been an uptick in the war on free speech.

Without notice, in January the Beijing Municipal Cyberspace Administration shut down the internet of the Unirule Institute of Economics, one of Chinas leading free-market think tanks, co-founded by Mao Yushi, a strong critic of the one-party state and the lack of a free market in ideas. Without access to the global flow of ideas, Unirules work has been all but cut off. Other internet sites have been shut down and Chinas cyber bullies have gone after virtual private networks (VPNs) that allow users to circumvent the Great Firewall.

Beginning on June 1, new rules governing the news content permitted on various internet platforms will be implemented, and editors will be subject to stronger oversight by the state and the Party. Cyber security law is intended to ensure that the CCPs overriding objective of stability and order is realized. Yet that goal conflicts with the creation of a dynamic civil society and with innovation and globalization.

Xi Jinping, in his belief that freedom is the purpose of order, and order the guarantee of freedom, fails to understand a basic tenet of liberalismnamely, that individual freedom is the source of an emergent order. That idea was known in China long before it was stated by Adam Smith in 1776. In the 6th century BC, Lao Tzu explained that when the ruler leaves people alone (the principle of noninterference or wu wei), people are spontaneously transformed and increase their wealth. They do so through voluntary market exchanges under a just rule of law.

China has allowed greater economic freedom, which has enabled millions of individuals to lift themselves and their families out of poverty, but the CCPs monopoly on power has prevented a corresponding expansion in freedom of the presseven though Article 35 of the PRC Constitution states that Citizens enjoy freedom of speech.

Top-down control of ideas must eventually clash with bottom-up economic reform. China cannot become a global financial center, like Hong Kong, without the free flow of information. Insulating the political elite from the competition of ideas is not a recipe for long-run prosperity and peace. As Liu Junning, an independent scholar in Beijing, has noted, Whether China will be a constructive partner or an emerging threat will depend on the fate of liberalism in China.

The Western liberal ideas that President Xi and the CCP reject place the individual before the state and see the state as the protector of individual rights, including free speech. A just rule of law is designed to limit the power of government and enhance individual freedom. By expanding marketsboth in goods and ideassuch an institutional arrangement increases the range of choices open to people, which is the true measure of development.

If China is to become a beacon for globalization and free trade, as President Xi advocated at the Davos World Economic Forum, there will have to be movement toward a free market in ideas. China cant continue to be near the bottom in terms of freedom of the press and speech without losing ground in the information age.

Continued here:
China's War on Free Speech - Cato Institute (blog)

If you were wondering why young Americans are less enthralled with the idea of free speech than their elders, look no further than this weeks appalling conviction of Desiree Fairooz.

Fairooz is a 61-year-old woman from Bluemont, Va., and an activist with Code Pink, the antiwar group well-known for its theatrical protests.

During the confirmation hearing of Jeff Sessions, our current attorney general, Fairooz was sitting in the hearing when she heard something she felt was ridiculous: an assertion from Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., that Sessions had a track record of treating all Americans equally under the law.

Fairooz was right about one thing the assertion is ridiculous. Sessions, who was considered too racist in the 1980s to be elected to a federal judgeship, has a well-documented history of discrimination.

So she did what plenty of Americans who believe in the idea that they have a right to free speech might have done: She laughed.

Officers came over and pulled her out of the hearing, and the Justice Deparment now under the purview of the apparently thin-skinned Sessions decided to prosecute her.

They won, too: Fairooz was convicted of disorderly and disruptive conduct and parading or demonstrating on Capitol grounds.

For laughing.

Theres been a lot of smug, self-righteous chatter about free speech for Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter in the Bay Area lately. Im not buying it, and Im not the only one.

Forty percent of people age 18-34 believe the government should be able to censor offensive speech toward minorities, a larger proportion than any other age group.

These young people dont feel this way because theyre fragile or delicate far from it. Its because they grew up in a society that expects them to cede the floor to racists and hatemongers, while accepting violent pushback against activists on the other end of the spectrum.

While Baby Boomers are lecturing them about tolerance for hateful speech and misrepresenting the history of Berkeleys Free Speech Movement, young people are thinking about the Occupy protesters who were pepper-sprayed by police at UC Davis.

Theyre thinking about the hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters tossed in jail for demonstrating against police brutality.

Now, theyll be thinking of Desiree Fairooz.

If free speech applies only to some Americans, its hardly free.

When I point this out, some (comfortable, reasonable) people like to tell me that free speech is a must in a liberal society. They tell me it ensures a marketplace of ideas from which people can pick the strongest ones. The assumption, of course, is that people will inevitably pick the best ones.

That assumptions based on an Enlightenment-era idea about the rationality of human beings. It makes my heart swell with nostalgia.

Look, kids, we used to imagine everyone had a fair chance in the marketplace! We used to believe people would make rational judgments!

The marketplace doesnt mean much to a generation facing staggering levels of student debt and a society mired in wealth and income economic inequalities.

For this generation, its an easy leap to recognize that the marketplace of ideas is unequal, too. Todays public squares are owned by businesses, and Facebook and Twitter can do whatever theyd like with your free speech. What those platforms certainly dont seem to be doing is much to drown out the trolls and abusers who plague outspoken women and people of color in particular.

As for the inevitability of rational judgment, its past time to put that old chestnut to rest.

If you believe in science, you may be aware of the growing body of research about the profound limitations of the human mind to successfully integrate facts contrary to our long-held belief systems. (If you dont believe in science, well, this might be why.)

Usually, people are swayed not by facts but by our emotions and our social group. Which brings me back to our current debate around free speech.

Its easy to believe in free speech if youve always had a platform for your own. Its easy to talk about speech as a universal right if youve never been dragged to jail for your laughter or your protest. Its also easy to tolerate hateful speakers if their vitriol isnt directed at you.

The younger generation more diverse and more disadvantaged than their parents is less interested in free speech because they see its benefits accruing only to those who want to do them harm. I understand where theyre coming from.

Personally, I believe that free speech is a right worth having and protecting. But like all rights, free speech needs to have equal worth for everyone. At the moment, it doesnt.

Sadly, the reason it doesnt is quite simple: Far too many Americans believe our countrys less-enlightened values of prejudice, greed and power are more important right now. A country where Desiree Fairooz can be convicted for laughing at a lie is a country where young people quickly learn whose rights have worth and whose do not.

Caille Millner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cmillner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @caillemillner

See the article here:
Free speech is a joke when laughing is a crime - San Francisco Chronicle

Steve Post, Guest columnist 7:29 p.m. ET May 5, 2017

Steve Post(Photo: Steve Post)

I could certainly offer some personal political perspective on the current milieu where opposing voices are shouted down, where riots are threatened to block speakers whose words constitute hate, and where some would need healing from even hearing anothers viewsor safe spaces to avoid them altogether. Americans were thought-leaders on an increasingly endangered liberty free speech and sober voices, even some on the Left, lament this state of affairs.

To be sure, the battle has been hard fought, and many have given their lives or livelihood in defense of this and our other considerable freedoms. And, as these freedoms seem to be waning in part, we recognize the potential for our own expense as we try to practice them as weve become accustomed ask the bakers, florists and photographers who have discovered that their religious convictions are read as bias and hate, and have paid for it.

American Christians are right to continue to fight for these liberties and against the erosion of the values which hold them in place. That said, it is not a biblical right for believers to be unaccosted in speaking their mind, whether speaking against God or for Him.

In Numbers 16 is the story of Korah, who led a rebellion with 250 other familial heads against the leadership of Moses and Aaron. As the Lords chosen leaders, Moses and Aaron stood in the gap between the Lord and the people. Suffice to say, God didnt look kindly on this attempted usurpation. Even after the Lord showed his displeasure by having the Earth swallow Korah and his clan, and sent out fire to the clans of the 250, the Israelites murmured against Moses for he killed the Lords people. Moses and Aaron interceded to mitigate Gods further response.

On the other hand, the New Testament is full of examples of speaking for God as Hes directed. Jesus whole missionary bent was to proclaim the gospel of the Kingdom of God. He declared His obedience thusly: For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandmentwhat to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life (John 12:49-50a).

Jesus directed the Apostles to do likewise, saying you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:8) They were ultimately commanded to share the Good News of His person and work all that He taught and all that he did (Matthew 28:19-20).

The cost of speaking for God in this way, for both Jesus and his Apostles, was similar to that of speaking against God temporally speaking, it cost them their lives. Jesus words were twisted to fit the narrative of those whom he upset with his claims and accusations, but He ultimately gave away his life in service to the Truth.

Likewise, ten of the eleven remaining Apostles (after Judas left) died for their proclamation of the Truth about Jesus Christ, as did Paul for his free speech in sharing the gospel a fate far better than if he had not (1 Corinthians 9:16). So, while we biblically follow the governing authorities (that is, obeying them as long as they dont command what God forbids or forbid what He commands see Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2), we can feel free as Americans to fight for the liberties others have won for us, but we should understand that we, like those in many other countries, may suffer consequences, and pay dearly for our free speech.

Steve Post is a Tallahassee resident, armchair theologian, and past local ministry lay leader. Contact him at sepost7678@gmail.com.

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Free speech isn't free - Tallahassee.com

News & Observer

NCCU, UNCG get high marks for free speech efforts News & Observer Two UNC system campuses have revamped their policies and earned higher ratings by a free speech watchdog organization. N.C. Central University and UNC Greensboro were given a green light, the highest designation, according to the ... and more »

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NCCU, UNCG get high marks for free speech efforts - News & Observer