I first read about a protest against the Minutemen at Columbia on Foolish Owl’s blog. For those who don’t know the Minutemen are an American group, who specialise in vile anti-immigration racism and have taken it on themselves to police the Mexico-US border.* The Young Republicans at Columbia had invited . Anti-racist/immigrant rights groups got together and organised a protest outside. Some people also went inside and disrupted the speech (either by unfurling a banner, or shouting the speaker down – I wasn’t there, and only have dial-up so I can’t watch the video – it’s irrelevant to my argument).
I absolutely support and applaud this sort of protest (I’ve done this sort of protest, just for the record). But what I wanted to address directly was the idea that by disrupting the event (however they did it) interupted this man’s right to free speech. The Happy Feminist was reasonably vocal in her disapproval:
But no it wouldn’t change my analysis. You protest outside, you write scathing editorials, and you publicize the fact that the College Republicans are basically inviting a hate group onto campus. But as a matter of both tactics and ethics, disrupting the actual speech isn’t right.
and
And to be crystal clear, no, I would not agree with shouting down a pro-life speaking or anti-feminist speaker.
It’s the same principle as the Jewish ACLU lawyer who defended the right of Nazis to demonstrate in Skokie. No matter how noxious and personal and awful he found what the Nazis were saying, he still defended their right to say it.
To me the principle of freedom of speech is to stop those with power limiting the speech of those without power (particularly stopping the state limit people’s freedom of speech, but I think the role of companies in limiting people’s speech also comes under the same analysis). The idea that respecting freedom of speech means listening in silence while someone says something you find offensive seems ridiculous to me. All freedom of speech guarantees is the ability to speak – it doesn’t mean that anyone has to listen to, or respect, what you’re saying.
Shouting down a speaker isn’t interfering with free speech; it is free speech.
What I find just plain weird, is that this argument is generally only applied to people who are speaking in formal settings. On Saturday the neo-nazis held their annual rally and there was a reasonably large counter protest which stopped them meeting where they wanted to meet, and shouted them down (more on that in a second). Very few people jump up and down and says a counter-demonstration is interupting the nazis freedom of speech. But when someone is an invited speaker – when they have backing by some institution, some power base then somehow they have more of a right to free speech than they do on a speech corner. That seems like the wrong way round to me. Those who are in positions of power, generally need less, not more protection against their rights being infringed.
So I have absolutely no ethical qualms in holding banners, chanting, or communicating in any way, while someone I disagree with is speaking. I exercise my freedom of speech by not being silent.
That doesn’t mean I think that shouting at people is always the best tactic. The counter-demonstration against the neo-nazis is a time where I thought the tactics were wrong. There aren’t very many neo-nazis in New Zealand, but they tend to be exactly sort of violent thugs you’d expect (two years back someone vandalised the graves of jewish people, and they attack people as well as graves).
To me, the point of protesting against neo-nazis is to make it really clear that white supremacy is not welcome. I see this message as not just for the nazis themselves, but also for everyone who walks by. But there’s never any purpose to the anti-fascist demonstration except to piss the nazis off. I strongly suspect being protested against makes the nazis feel cool and important, so the counter-protest ends up being counterproductive.
I do think that we need to organise to ensure that fascists don’t get a hold. But we don’t do that by shouting at them. Political racism has appeal for working-class people who believe that they should be better off than they are. By saying “it’s the jews/immigrants/Maori who are to blame for your situation” various groups (including mainstream political parties obviously) use racism to organise and gain support. The only response to those lies is to present what we see as the truth – to show that it is capitalism that is to blame for people’s economic problems, and that it can be fought.
I didn’t attend Saturday’s anti-fascist demonstration. I’m sick of them, sick of the macho atmosphere, and sick of activists who seem to get their kicks by playing cops and robbers with fascist groups, as if it’s the most important work in the world. There’s a real macho culture to these sorts of demos, that makes me very uncomfortable.
I’m really glad I didn’t go, as there seems to have been a distinct lack of political analysis at the counter-protest. “More hair than brains” may be an amusing chant towards skinheads – but actually our problem isn’t with their hair cut, or their intellect. Likewise a whole crowd chant of ‘Ugly, Ugly, Ugly’ seems to miss the point.
But most disturbing to me was that some supposedly anti-fascist protesters shouted “cocksuckers” and “faggots” to the nazis. Now I don’t want to tarnish the entire demonstration with the misogynist homophobic actions of a few. I have a lot of friends who were at the demonstration, and I know that they would neither shout that, or stand silent while someone else chanted it. But I think it shows that my fears about a macho atmosphere are not unreasonable.
* Just for a short break and disturbing story. My sister once met someone who worked for the US border patrol at a party. When asked what he did he flipped out his badge (which he’d carried with him to Wellington, presumably to impress the girls) and said “I shoot Mexicans”. Just a reminder that the Minutemen are only one of the violent racist groups on the Mexican-US border.
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I think there’s a fundamental difference between the Columbia University case and the Skokie case, which is the role of government vs. the role of private individuals.
In the Skokie case, the Nazis were marching on public land pursuant to a government-issued permit. I think there’s a strong public policy reason for insisting that the government be viewpoint-neutral when it comes to prohibiting speech.
In the CU case, the speech is taking place at a private university, funded by a private group. “I paid for this microphone” doesn’t give you the right to be heard; it simply gives you the advantage of being the one with the microphone. The students have the right to chant, hold up banners, etc.; the Young Republicans have the right to eject them from the venue.
For those who don’t know the Minutemen are an American group, who specialise in vile anti-immigration racism and have taken it on themselves to police the Mexico-US border.
The Minutemen are various groups of people who observe the U.S.’s southern border and report suspicious movements to the American authorities. They do not attempt to apprehend anyone or physically interfere or otherwise interact with anyone they observe. There are chapters in various states.
Some of their members are armed, but they carry arms for use in self-defense only. There’s a large amount of drug smuggling across this border, some of it reputedly supported by Mexican police or people wearing their uniforms, and drug smugglers are generally armed and not desirous of being observed. To my knowledge there’s no examples of any use of those arms. For those of you not familiar with the American States bordering Mexico (California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico), it’s not at all unusual for residents of those states (especially the last 3) to own guns and carry them. In the United States, private ownership of a gun is considered by most people and most laws to be guaranteed as a right (not just a privilege) to law-abiding citizens on the basis of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution (although there is some controversy).
I don’t see how the charge of “vile anti-immigration racism” can be supported. The group reports any movements they see without regard to the race of the people being observed, and there are plenty of non-Mexicans coming across the border. The organizations puts out no racist literature or statements and does not allow it’s members to use it’s name for any such agendas. The organization to my knowledge also has never taken a position opposing immigration, and in fact has immigrants (Hispanic and otherwise) as members. It obviously does oppose people illegally crossing the American border, but that’s criminal activity, not immigration.
Immigrants don’t start their life in a new country by breaking the laws of that country just to get in and then continuously breaking the law every day for the objective of personal financial gain. Those aren’t immigrants, they’re criminals, and there’s not a country on Earth that doesn’t have and enforce laws against such behavior. Immigrants seek legal entry into a country and then obey the laws once they enter.
Maia, can you give me any evidence that the Minutemen chapters have ever offered any opposition to people legally entering the United States?
RonF:
They do not attempt to apprehend anyone or physically interfere or otherwise interact with anyone they observe.
At least one man claims otherwise:
On April 6, 2005, three Minuteman Project members took a picture and video of a 25-year-old alleged illegal immigrant posing with a T-shirt with one of them. The T-shirt, which was also worn by volunteer Bryan Barton, read “Bryan Barton caught me crossing the border and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”
Barton claims to have encountered a man named Jose who had been near a main highway while Barton was off duty from patrolling the border. The man said he had been walking for two days in the Mexican desert. Believing the man to be in distress from exposure and lack of fluids and food, Barton gave him a bowl of Wheaties and milk. He then contacted the U.S. Border Patrol. Barton shook Jose’s hand several times, translated Jose’s Spanish for the camera, held up a lettered T-shirt which he made to commemorate the event, and gave him 20 US dollars as the Border Patrol arrived and took Jose into custody. Critics of the MMP raised questions about the incident, but an investigation by the Cochise County Sheriff’s office cleared Barton of any wrongdoing.
However, Jose claimed that he had been detained against his will by Barton and other Minutemen Project members. Although Jose did not press criminal charges, Barton’s actions were declaimed in the press at best as “mocking” [18], and by some as a hate crime, [19] . The MMP activists videotaped their actions and posted them on Barton’s national congressional campaign website.
RonF:
To my knowledge there’s no examples of any use of those arms.
Although the Columbia Spectator reports:
People affiliated with the Minutemen have often used violence against Mexican immigrants in California and Arizona, up to and including gunfire, as admitted by Jim Chase of the San Diego Minutemen.
RonF:
I don’t see how the charge of “vile anti-immigration racism” can be supported.
Well, take a look at the last paragraph of the first quotation in response to you in this comment.
RonF:
The group reports any movements they see without regard to the race of the people being observed, and there are plenty of non-Mexicans coming across the border.
Yes, indeed. There are also plenty of Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Ecuadorians, etc. All of whom are currently regarded as Not White.
Immigrants don’t start their life in a new country by breaking the laws of that country just to get in and then continuously breaking the law every day for the objective of personal financial gain.
My grandfather, who was an immigrant from Hungary in the 1930’s did just this. He was smuggled in on a freighter from Hamburg. It was many years (during which he worked, I assume that in your view this constitutes continuing to break the law) before he was able to become a citizen.
You are sadly mistaken if you don’t think that a significant percentage of immigrants started their lives in the USA by “breaking the laws of that country just to get in and then continuously breaking the law every day for the objective of personal financial gain.”
To me the principle of freedom of speech is to stop those with power limiting the speech of those without power (particularly stopping the state limit people’s freedom of speech, but I think the role of companies in limiting people’s speech also comes under the same analysis).
The law regarding freedom of speech in the U.S. stems from the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and since we have some non-Americans here I’ll quote it:
Extended to all levels of government, this means that no law can be valid that enables the government to restrict what people can say, sing, print, etc. There are limits; as Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said, “You can’t yell ‘FIRE’ in a crowded theater,” and since he was at the time Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court his opinion mattered. But absent that, the First Amendment guarantees that the government can’t tell you what you can or cannot say, or where or when or how.
But what I wanted to address directly was the idea that by disrupting the event (however they did it) interupted this man’s right to free speech. … What I find just plain weird, is that this argument is generally only applied to people who are speaking in formal settings.
That’s because this has nothing to do with freedom of speech. You are correct; this man’s right to free speech was not violated. At no point did the government try to interfere with his right to speak.
The First Amendment says nothing about the right of any non-governmental entity to restrict speech. If I own a printing press, you can ask me to print something. If I refuse, for whatever reason, you have no right to compel me to print it anyway under the First Amendment, since you are free to go to some other printing press owner and get them to print it, or you are free to buy/build your own printing press. This is important when considering why the attitudes are different regarding “formal” and “non-formal” settings.
When you describe a non-formal setting, you are describing a public place. All the citizens of that location “own” it. Therefore, it’s fair game for everyone to use, and the objections to someone organizing a counter-protest should be low (provided everyone’s non-violent) since the counter-protestors’ rights to that place are on the same level as those of the original protest.
But when you describe a “formal” setting, you are actually describing private property. If someone owns a microphone, or has rented it, then they have every right to control what is said through it. The same for blogs. If a property owner restricts what is said or done on their property, that is not a violation of freedom of speech. If someone owns a auditorium, they have every right to say that the people who rented the stage and the microphone has a right to speak and the other people in that auditorium have to either shut up and listen or leave. They have every right to remove people who interfere with the speaker against their will.
Now, those people with an opposing view to the speaker above are within their rights to rent some facility elsewhere and present their opposing views without interference, or to go to the local public park and stand up on a box and speak their minds to whoever walks by. But their right to shout down a speaker in a private setting is solely up to the owner of that private setting.
All freedom of speech guarantees is the ability to speak – it doesn’t mean that anyone has to listen to, or respect, what you’re saying.
Quite true, and something that a lot of people seem to forget. Please remember it the next time that someone shouts down a pro-abortion rights speaker.
Shouting down a speaker isn’t interfering with free speech; it is free speech.
In a public place that would be correct. But, on private property you don’t have freedom of speech. You have only the privilege to speak that the property owner grants you. If the private property owner has forbidden people to do this, and you do it anyway, you have not violated anyone’s freedom of speech, but you have violated the private property owner’s wishes and they have the right to have you tossed out of the auditorium.
It seems to me that the speaker at Columbia University had a reasonable expectation that he would be able to speak without interference. It was a private venue and they had been invited to speak. They might even have paid for that privilege, but I can’t swear to it. The private venue was a university, and a university is supposed to be a place where people can present their ideas and have them heard and debated. It is not supposed to be a place where people who want to present controversial views are prevented from doing so by the community.
Of course, the university has every right to allow people to shout down the speaker. But then, who would go to the university to speak if they think a significant number of the people there would disagree to the point that they’d be shouted down? How do the students of Columbia get to hear and consider opposing views? I don’t think that’s the reputation that Columbia wants.
You make a bad “power” analogy, and so your conclusion–based on that analogy–is deeply flawed.
Columbia University is a very liberal setting. The administration of Columbia is not “sympathetic” to the Minutemen. (in general academia is very liberal, with some rare exceptions).
So when Columbia invited the Minutemen to speak, it was with the reality that at Columbia, the Minutemen are far from the “empowered”. In fact, their views represent a minority view which–absent the support of the administration–might not be heard at Columbia at all. If thie minutemen set up a booth on their own, they might well be shoted down.
That the administration invited them is commendable. It shows the school’s dedication to investigation of different viewpoints. It shows the school’s support of student and faculty exposure to multiple viewpoints. It does NOT–as you suggest, and/or as would be required for your position to be correct–show the school’s support of those viewpoints.
You say “the principle of freedom of speech is to stop those with power limiting the speech of those without power.”
But if you were to apply this in a non-opportunistic manner, you would realize that in this setting the minutemen were ther ones with less power, and–under your own theory–deserving of protection. The protection the school granted them (a place to speak) was fairly minimal. Attendance was voluntary; the sppech was short; there was no permanent presence. It was a reasonable accomodatio to protect a minority view.
I do not personally like the minutemen much, so we agree about that. But I do not support the students’ actions. They acted like assholes.
And as you seem to support their actions, I have to ask the obvious followup: Are you ever shouted down? Prevented from speaking your piece?
And when/if that happens–do you ask for protection? Claim free speech? State that what happened was bad/wrong?
It may be that you believe that this is acceptable behavior for all. I disagree (I think it doesn’ t lead to good discourse and results, and I think it privileges the minority) but in that event I would still respect your consistency. But all too often, I find that people want protections for their pet causes, and not for their oppponents’. That’s hypocritical.
Actually, Sailorman, you would be wrong on one point. Admittedly her power structure would not work if, indeed, Columbia University had invited the speaker in to express his or her viewpoint about the Minutemen. However, the people who invited the speaker was the Young Repbulicans committee at Columbia University-which means that her power structure isn’t off, unless you are arguing that Republicans do not support the conservative viewpoints of the Minutemen and are as liberal as Columbia University. However I agree with your main point, if you are paying a speaker to be heard, regardless of their viewpoint, they should be heard. Since this was supported by a particular group, it was their privelge to boot the “troublemakers” out. However, I feel that those who shouted this person down, in case my opinion seems gray somehow, were wrong, on the simple grounds of courtsey. I don’t have to agree with your opinions, but I should hear them out. No one has the “right” to be heard, but as courtsey you should be heard (and then ridiculed for your obviously wrong viewpoint since it doesn’t match mine and I am superior is all ways *sarcasm/humor*).
Let’s not presume that a left-wing group holds unacceptable views just because some of their members do.
Let’s presume that a government entity has unacceptable views because one of it’s members does.
I agree that of course the First Amendment only protects citizens from governmental interference. However, I believe that the student protesters violated the fundamental values underlying our concept of freedom of speech. I also disagree that their actions constituted freedom of speech. They had no free speech right whatsoever to speak in a private auditorium in which they were not the invited speakers.
Where I disagree most strongly is with the notion that the Minutemen were the more powerful group in this situation. They may be more powerful out in the world or when they are doing their thing on the Mexican border. They were not powerful in that auditorium when they were being shouted down and disrupted (if that’s what happened). If it’s okay to shout people down, then whoever shouts the loudest is the most powerful. Shouting people down means that might makes right. It was in fact that very power dynamic that I found most off-putting about the protest.
to show that it is capitalism that is to blame for people’s economic problems
Right. Because in the socialist world, people don’t have any economic problems. There are infinite quantities of all goods and services, and when it rains the water turns to gold coins whenever it comes near someone who has a material need, and everyone owns a puppy or a kitty (depending on individual preference) who was born litter-trained and who shits Twinkies and pees Bushmills.
To me the principle of freedom of speech is to stop those with power limiting the speech of those without power…
So, for example, if a mob of people tried to stop one individual from speaking, that would be a clear-cut case of the people with power (the mob) limiting the speech of the powerless (the lone individual facing a hostile crowd alone)?
The idea that respecting freedom of speech means listening in silence while someone says something you find offensive seems ridiculous to me.
How about the idea that respecting freedom of speech means refraining from engaging in mob tactics to silence dissent?
All freedom of speech guarantees is the ability to speak – it doesn’t mean that anyone has to listen to, or respect, what you’re saying.
True! So if your activist group decides to hold a rally to put your point of view out on the street, and I organize a thousand bullies to surround you, shout you down, tear up your signs, and just be generally offensive and mob-like, I’m not doing anything to violate your freedom of speech. You’re perfectly free to say what you like, while you hide under a mailbox in fear for your life from mob violence.
At least, in your understanding of things, I’m not. Right?
As I understood it from the media coverage, the speaker was rushed, shoved, and his glasses broken.
Maia, are you sure you support physical assault?
and everyone owns a puppy or a kitty (depending on individual preference) who was born litter-trained and who shits Twinkies and pees Bushmills.
Regular Bushmills or Black Bush? If the latter, then I’m going socialist tomorrow.
generally i don’t know if the minutemen are vile, but even if they are, i agree with maia’s argument in this post. “freedom of speech” applies to government suppression of speech on a political basis–not the reaction of other private citizens. then again, other private citizens are also free to express their disappointment in the tactics of respondents. ain’t the first amendment grand?
I don’t mean to be subversive in saying this, but I will never ever understand the blind defence of freedom of speech where the freedom of speech impacts and detracts from other consitutionally protected rights.
In Canada, the right of “Freedom of Expression” is protected in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom. “Freedom of Equality” is also a constitutionally enshrined and protected right. Where there is conflict between the two rights, a judicial analysis is done under s. 1 of the Charter – that all rights are subject to “such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”.
How this plays out in a Canadian context is that the right of freedom of expression can be contrained by demonstrably justifiable limits. We have a provision in the Criminal Code, which is federal, prohibiting “inciting hatred against members of an indentifiable group”. A ‘neo-nazi’ rally, a Fred Phelps style funeral protest, teachers who teach anti-holocost messages to children, public school counsellors in small towns who write into community papers with anti-gay messages, people passing out pamphlets that encourage hatred/prejudice/discrimination against minority racialized groups – these are all things that are caught by the provision in the Criminal Code or which are, at the very least, captured and prohibited. This may be antiethical to unbridled freedom of speech, however, it is based in a tradition that one right is not more important than other. Your right to free expression or free speech does not triumph over my right to equality. When your free expression only serves to incite others to crutail my right to equality than it is justifiable that you can be charged under the inciting hatred provisions.
My point essentially is this – Why is a neo-nazi protest more important than the ability for African-Americans to be free of discrimination and hate? Why is Fred Phelp’s message more important than the rights of gay community? What good does it do to continually sear images of hate into the consciousness of Americans? Why is that right, the right to speak freely in a way that incites hatred against indentifiable groups, why is that right more important than the rights of minorities to equality? What good does it do to have a public, sanctioned avenue to pass on a legacy of hatred to the next generation? Why is this right so important?
In Canadian law and jurisprudence, effective protection of minority rights may mean curtailing some rights of the majority. This means that majority do not always get to rally up the militia into spewing venimous hatred of minority groups. I for one, am willing to curtail my right to say whatever I want, regardless of the consequences of the right to equality of other citizens.
Would you support the right of racist groups to shout down speakers at an NAACP meeting? Would you support the right of Fred Phelps types to come to a GLBTA screaming God Hates Fags?
Somehow I doubt it.
Beth; actually, Maia seems to me to hold that freedom of speech allows one to interfere with someone’s speech on private property. I hold that it doesn’t; that in fact, the First Amendment isn’t involved at all here. The issue is one of private property rights, something else that the U.S. Constitution was written to protect.
I was for all intents and purposes trying to make the same arguments you were, for which I was jumped on over at Happy feminist’s blog, so its good to see that I’m not the only one who feels that way. Just for clarification, I live in Canada, so I’m not sure exactly how the first amendment works, but I personally saw nothing wrong with it.
I don’t think Maia (or anyone else) is really arguing the LEGAL concept of free speech–which, as most of us know, applies only to governmental restrictions anyway. Private property, public property–that’s not really the issue.
It seems she/we are discussing more of a SOCIETAL concept: when (if ever) is it appropriate to act to silence someone else?
Maia is, incorrectly I think, trying to equate silencing and speaking. The concept of free speech, especially in the academic setting, is one of “sunshine”: The open air and logical analysis will be efective at sorting out the dreck from the good points. Questions can expose weaknesses.
And silencing ones opponent is usually the refuge of the weak arguer. Even though forced silence has/is been used by governments, it is generally used when the population is right. If an argument is clear and superior, it will be so in public. If not, well….
Finally, the concept of a “right to silence” views one doesn’ agree with is one of judging. It only works if the people doing the silencing are correct in judging what “should” or “should not” be heard. I don’t trust Maia–or anyone–to judge for me. (Maia: would you let me judge for you as to what you are allowed to hear? Probably not–but what if I happen to be in the majority? That’s but one of the problems with what you siggest…)
Actually, the minutemen do not spend all their time packing guns and guarding the southern border. Many of them travel in groups and “demonstrate” where day laborers(including both documented and undocumented immigrants) and in cities in Orange County where there are large populations of immigrants, again documented and undocumented from various countries down south including Mexico, Guatamala and El Salvador. It’s no accident that Orange County is a big stronghold for the Minutemen given the strong sentiment against Latinos, again, documented, undocumented and citizens, that is held there. The recent scandal involving the congressman who is running against Loretta Sanchez is only another example.
Congressional candidate linked to letter lambasts foe
In fact, Sanchez is no stranger to this problem. When she ran against the old “B-2 Bomber” Dornan years back, the Republicans hired “security guards” to go to the polls and harass Latino voters. Not Latinos who were undocumented and trying illegally to cast votes, but registered Latino voters. It seems that except for the handful of Lation allies that the organization attracts and puts out front and center as *proof* that it’s not attacking people on the basis of their ethnicity, that they can’t really tell the “good” Latinos apart from the “law-breaking” Latinos.
Being East of that region just thrills me because the O.C. “white flight” from the Latino “invasion” as it’s often called in O.C. are coming in my direction.
When it comes to shouting out, the minutemen give as good or better than they get. They show up to “counter” demonstrate at speeches given by those who advocate for undocumented immigrants. They traveled from O.C. and all the way from Arizona just to shout out and shut down a forum held by my city’s Human Relations Commission on the immigration issue. They do not allow for dialogue on these issues either.
Well, it could be a “bad apple” in the bunch like RonF says(though the adage about the barrel is very true in LE agencies) or it’s an individual who is feeding off of a larger culture within that agency.
Corruption is pretty prevalent in what was formerly called the INS. How many border patrol agents have “girlfriends” who are undocumented immigrants? Quite a few. And as for them being consensual relationships as is claimed, if that is so, at any rate, who has the power in these relationships?
It’s no coincedence that with California’s move towards becoming a majority minority state that you’re going to see groups like the minutemen emerge to “protect” our borders.
I’ve met and spoken to my share of minutemen because I’ll converse with just about anyone, and you can look at your watch and get to the oh, three minute mark where they start going off on every Mexican racist stereotype you can fit in one speech. There are exceptions but maybe they just take longer in their speeches to get to that point. And they’re not doing an adequate job at screening out their Aryan Brotherhood, KKK and racist skinhead applicants. Not to mention those individuals with the National Alliance, which is a neonazi group(since neonazis were brought up here).
The truth is, that this organization attracts its share of people who just don’t like individuals whose skin is browner than their own. Not that there aren’t issues that involve immigration which they could better address, but this group seems more intent on getting its face in the media and doing “sweeps”(well, really actually getting in the border patrol agents’ way) near the border.
The audience had been shouting back and issuing opprobrium at the start of the presentation. The hostile verbal exchange went on for fifty minutes while Stewart was introducing Gilchrist. For the three minutes that he was speaking, Gilchrist traded insults and sarcasm with the audience. There was no suppression of hostile verbal interaction and that isn’t what ended the event.
The conflagration happened when the intrepid lot of protesters advanced onto the stage with their “Nobody is Illegal” banner. Then some tug-of-war over the banner happened and then some fisticuffs until Gilchrist’s bodyguards and Columbia security kept unfriendly factions from interacting.
Surely, everyone must have seen the video by now.
this site.
Student groups who invite speakers at Columbia are not obligated to invite a general audience. They can have entirely-restricted admission if they wish. Obviously, the College Republicans wanted a controversial and inflammatory event.
I’m curious, Maia, do you actually think that the reciprocal free speech rights of the audience include the right to physically accost and move onto another speaker’s speaking space? Even when demonstrations occur on public property, physical space is not up for the taking by whatever competing group. Parade permits have to be requested, speaking space may have to be rented. Is it actually okay to physically accost and physically move onto a speaker’s reserved space to brandish competing banners? If a pro-immigrant group secured a stage for presentation, it’s perfectly okay for some nativists to go onto that stage and interrupt the speaking to unfurl a banner saying “This Country is Being Invaded”? Even if this all occurred upon entirely public property, most would think that some sort of trangression had been committed.
The problem I have with those who think that what the protesters did was okay–and I should be clear that, personally, I agree with their positions as I understand them–is an educational one. The university is an educational institution; my own experience is that all students, of all political and ideological persuasions, would benefit greatly from hearing, deeply questioning and debating people who hold positions different from their own. This is not simply about the university being an “open marketplace” of ideas–a metaphor that is certainly worth examining in itself–but also because, in my experience, most students are woefully uninformed, or ill-informed, about what the different positions out there on any given issue actually are. They have little sense of history, of social/cultural context, etc. (I am not blaming the students themselves for this; nor am I judging them for it; it is simply something I have observed after almost 20 years of being a college professor.)
Today, for example, when I asked two different classes of about 20 students each, most of them second-semester freshman, where Beirut was (the city was in the title of a poem we were reading), not a single one was able to tell me. But they all have (mostly uninformed) opinions about Islam and Arabs and many other things that they are perfectly willing to share without any sense of irony. Surely these students would benefit greatly from hearing, for example, someone from Lebanon talk about her or his Lebanese perspective on the recent Israeli bombardment of that country–which most of my students were not able to recall even happening. (Such a talk would also have had the salutory effect of giving them some context for the poem we were discussing.)
We have had this debate at my college on any number of occasions, and it is almost always people on the left–people with whom I almost always agree politically and ideologically–who want to vote down (because I am talking here about faculty committees involved in organizing events) the bringing of right-wing speakers. The argument is usually that the conservative/right-wing viewpoint is adequately represented in the media, etc. (and please can we not get into a liberal vs. conservative media debate here; that is besides the point) and so what we should be doing at the college is offering alternatives. The problem with that is–assuming for the moment that it’s true–students aren’t paying attention to the mainstream media either. It’s quite possible that a college program is the only place they would ever hear a reasoned presentation of the conservative/right-wing, much less progressive/left-wing position.
Also, freedom of speech in the U.S. is something that is enabled (or, repressed) by government actors (which could, by extension, include corporations, nowadays, because of the increasing privatization of public life) — and not by other individuals. An impingement of the rights of this group to speak would have been something like the publicly funded university not giving them permission to use their facilities for no reason other than they didn’t like their message. I agree that, in the context, we can see the counter-protesters exercising their own right to free speech BUT NOT themselves impinging on the other groups’s rights to free speech.
I just realized that I should have specified in my post that I was talking about what happened at Columbia University.
The Columbia protest was a small step backwards for immigrants. All it accomplished was to give a rather sympathetic national platform to these minutemen bozos. The right wing loves this type of peusdo-radical campus theatrics at affluent universities because it presents no threat while allowing the right to whine about how they are oppressed.
It’s interesting that immigrants, largely illegal, staged some the largest demonstrations in this country’s history last spring, yet on the liberal blogsphere I see next to zero analysis about this. For all the pissing and whining on these PC blogs when the most exploited sector of American society stages a mini revolt the left is frickin AWOL.
To me the principle of freedom of speech is to stop those with power limiting the speech of those without power (particularly stopping the state limit people’s freedom of speech, but I think the role of companies in limiting people’s speech also comes under the same analysis). The idea that respecting freedom of speech means listening in silence while someone says something you find offensive seems ridiculous to me. All freedom of speech guarantees is the ability to speak – it doesn’t mean that anyone has to listen to, or respect, what you’re saying.
There is a huge difference between not “respecting” or “listening” to what someone is saying, and rushing a stage and shouting down a speaker.
If you choose not to listen, you can do so by not showing up to something you find disagreeable, you can show up and literally not listen (sink into the interior of your brain), or listen and decide the person is wrong and move on with your life. Or like most colleges, they probably offer a question and answer period after the initial speeches where you can disagree or raise questions.
Shouting down a speaker isn’t interfering with free speech; it is free speech.
I suppose in the most literal sense shouting down a speaker might be construed as free speech.
But, and there is a major “but” here, you are also “interfering” with free speech. By engaging in your “free speech” you intentionally or unintentionally interfere with their “free speech” by shouting them into silence or shouting over them so their message can’t be heard. This goes beyond simply not listening or not respecting someone’s opinion.
dictionary.com defines the word: “interfere”
1) to come into opposition, as one thing with another, esp. with the effect of hampering action or procedure (often fol. by with): Constant distractions interfere with work.
or to provide a looser definition:
4) to interpose or intervene for a particular purpose.
So come on, it’s quite obvious if you “shout down” a speaker, you are not doing this for the sheer whim of it, you probably have some politic agenda. As you point out, not respecting or disagreeing with their opinion. And thus you obviously are “interposing or intervening for a particular purpose”, that purpose being perhaps to silence their opinion (or to hamper, see 1st definition), or in the least to express your disagreement with their opinion, and the very act of responding to a speech in such a fashion is to “interpose” or “intervene”; after all, nobody invited you to speak. I am using “you” here to designate a very general “everybody who is not the speaker”, and not literally you as to show any sign of disrespect for your opinion.
So what becomes clear from all this is that your initial statement that such an act of protest is ONLY free speech and NOT interfering is clearly wrong. It is both.
However, this also reveals the very character, the very nature, of this form of “free speech.” The purpose of “interfering” free speech isn’t to get your own point across for debate. After all, if you truly wanted debate, you could set up a moderator or do a question-and-answer session after the speeches, upon which certain ground rules for respect and decorum would be laid out, and both sides would get a fair oppurtunity to present their case. Nor is the purpose simply to express an opinion on the topic in and of itself, which can be done privately in a newspaper or an article or invite another speaker from a different group at a later date with the opposite opinion on immigration.
No, it becomes quite clear that inherent in the nature of this type of speech, one that tries to overpower another person speaking (especially since you might not be able to hear the particulars or nuances of counter-protesters because of their loudness), the true goal isn’t for anyone to really hear the message, it is really to silence the opponent so you don’t hear their message. That seems to be the primary goal. If the real goal were to present your message and really present a message, suggesting it has nuances and more than a simple, “Immigration = good”, then shouting probably isn’t the best medium to do as the particulars get lost in the cacaphony.
The question then is do we still have the right to “interfere” with someone else’s free speech? Do we have the right to express “free speech” if its goal isn’t so much to utilize free speech to make a point or disagree in an articulate way (like one would in a book, essay, article, or at a podium), and thus in those cases actually refer to “speech” instead of “noise” as actual words can be discerned, but so-called “speech” that has the primary and main purpose to shut the other group up?
I am not a constitutional lawyer, a judge, or anyone with power to make such a decision or interpretation. I can only speak for myself and obviously not for any of you. I believe free speech is for everyone regardless of whether I disagree with their opinion or not. Now since I am none of those things above, I won’t answer whether such “interfering” speech is or isn’t protected by the first amendment as I’m certainly not qualified to make such a judgement.
However, I do believe in such a thing as common courtesy. I believe when you shout someone down or act in the same manner as the students of Columbia you are just being plain rude. I also believe that someone who needs to engage in such behavior probably doesn’t think very highly of their own opinion, if they have to resort to shouting, rudeness, and cannot respect common courtesy. You may claim that you shouldn’t show common courtesy to people who’s opinions you don’t respect, but common courtesy I would argue is something beyond an opinion or an idea (though, it is an idea itself). Common courtesy has nothing to do with respecting a person’s opinion, but it is everything to do with respecting that person’s right to express that opinion. It is also a recognition that we are all human, even the racists and bigots among us; I feel I have no right to speak about equality or against racism or whatever if I can’t recognize humanity in the person sitting next to me.
I also wish to point out, there is a difference in disagreeing with someone’s opinion and not respecting their opinions (for example, if not evident by this post, I respect your opinions, but I disagree with them).
But whatever one might think about “interfering” free speech, when you actually take the step beyond “speech” to “rush” a stage, you’ve gone far beyond any sort of freedom of speech, and now are violating another group’s right to “peaceably assemble”, and your left with a case of mob-acracy.
Isn’t fascism a special case in all this though?
Maia, you say: But there’s never any purpose to the anti-fascist demonstration except to piss the nazis off.
That might be the case, but what counter-protests should do is organise for the physical defence of their communities – neo-Nazi/fascist rallies and marches pose an immediate physical threat to Jews, black and minority ethnic people, LGBT people etc and should be smashed up wherever the left and the labour movement have the power to do so.
Really? My impression was that those demonstrations got a lot of coverage in the mainstream media and in the blogosphere. I seem to remember thinking the demonstrations were great and effective! (My blog did not cover it but there is a lot of important stuff my blog doesn’t cover, especially if I have nothing much to add except, “Hey, that’s great!”)
I didn’t mean coverage as in 20,000 marched down such and such a street. I meant analysis in the sense of describing the movement from the bottom up. It’s strengths/weaknesses; it’s relation to other parts of American society like unions, black and white workers the Catholic church; the potential for broadening and continuing the movement. This is the kind of discussion I’d like to see. Instead lib/leftists get sidetracked onto the mostly irrelevant minutemen because it’s an easy way to say “I’m an anti-racist” without actually doing anything significant.
Oh, I see what you mean. I’d like to know more about that too.
Well, it could be a “bad apple” in the bunch like RonF says(though the adage about the barrel is very true in LE agencies) or it’s an individual who is feeding off of a larger culture within that agency.
Actually, I wasn’t making any kind of point specifically about the one LE person. I was making a point that Maia in consecutive paragraphs made something close to the “a few bad apples” argument for what she viewed as homophobic and mysogynist attitudes by members of a left-oriented group, but then used the LE’s comment to condemn the entire Border Patrol as violent and racist. It’s especially interesting since the only actual physical behavior observed that was threatening was exhibited by the left-wing group, not the LE officer.
Megalodon:
Student groups who invite speakers at Columbia are not obligated to invite a general audience. They can have entirely-restricted admission if they wish. Obviously, the College Republicans wanted a controversial and inflammatory event.
Why would they restrict their audience if they wanted everyone to hear what the man had to say? The responsibility to ensure that the audience does not turn abusive and violent is on the part of the audience, not those who invited the speaker. Are you seriously proposing that the actions of the audience are the fault of the College Republicans? Or is this kind of audience reaction so common at Columbia that it would be reasonable for people to expect it – which pretty heavily condemns Columbia as any kind of reputable marketplace of ideas.
Radfem:
Many of them travel in groups and “demonstrate” where day laborers(including both documented and undocumented immigrants) and in cities in Orange County where there are large populations of immigrants, again documented and undocumented from various countries down south including Mexico, Guatamala and El Salvador.
This sentence seems to be unfinished.
The recent scandal involving the congressman who is running against Loretta Sanchez is only another example.
In fact, Sanchez is no stranger to this problem. When she ran against the old “B-2 Bomber” Dornan years back, the Republicans hired “security guards” to go to the polls and harass Latino voters. Not Latinos who were undocumented and trying illegally to cast votes, but registered Latino voters. It seems that except for the handful of Lation allies that the organization attracts and puts out front and center as *proof* that it’s not attacking people on the basis of their ethnicity, that they can’t really tell the “good” Latinos apart from the “law-breaking” Latinos.
This seems to be an attempt to link the Minutemen to an 8-year old election problem that they had nothing to do with.
BTW, a Congressional investigation revealed that at least 600 illegal aliens voted in an election won by someone with a Hispanic name and heritage that was decided by fewer than 900 votes. Note I say “at least”; they didn’t hold that they had discovered all the illegal votes. So much for people saying that voting by illegal aliens is not a problem.
I condemn racism. But that doesn’t mean that citizens patrolling the border and reporting whoever they see that is crossing illegally is racist, or that the organization is racist.
And they’re not doing an adequate job at screening out their Aryan Brotherhood, KKK and racist skinhead applicants.
How do you know this? And what would you recommend they do (besides disband)?
Errata:
“an election ” above refers to the Dornan-Sanchez election that Radfem referred to and that I quoted from her. I did a Google search on it. Interesting reading. Dornan’s a freak, but that doesn’t mean he lost the election fairly.
Katrina, I looked up the Canadian Constitution. Is this the “Freedom of Equality” statement that you refer to?
Is this what your country’s judges balance against freedom of speech as given the the following?
I want to make sure I’ve got this right before I comment further.
I still would like to know if Maia had incomplete information about the incident, or if, as a radical feminist, she supports physical violence as a rhetorical technique.
So I guess Maia would agree that if someone doesn’t like this blog and its viewpoint then they would be well-within their rights (assuming they had the technical competence) to hack it and take it off the internet. (“shouting it down.”)
It sounds to me as if Maia believes in free-speech for those with the ability to control it.
what was the physical violence?
Ron F
we have a government to patrol the border. Do mexican-americans (or anybody) have the right to set up their own armed police forces to deal with local police department who are falling down on the job of prosecuting hate crimes? Even if you think so, i wonder if the minute men would support it.
They are racist–if the armed intimidation and attacks on people they assume are illegal immgrants dont convince you of that, ask yourself–why no minute men taking on the illegal Irish and Eastern European neighborhoods in New York? Where’s the militia enforcing the Canadian border. Give me a break
Agnostic asked:
In her article, Maia wrote:
Maia told us she had incomplete knowledge but also thinks additional information would be irrelevant.
That might be true if the video showed the protestors did nothing more than unfurl banners and shout. In reality, many in the protesting group jumped cordons, occupied the stage and some approached the podium while wave arms shouting loudly and waving arms quite vigorously. As a group , they acted in a way in a way that might give the speaker or college republicans reason to fear for their physical safety. (If I’d been on that podium I’d have been pretty scared when a huge crowd was approaching and more and more people began trying to jump up onto the stage. Granted, I’m not the bravest person in the world, but still. . . )
This type of behavior is considered assault which is illegal even when it’s not aimed to block speech.
I’m absolutely not a fan of the minutemen, but I am a fan of freedom of speech. Blocking speech through words and actions that amount to an illegal assault is preventing free speech. The protestors got a lot of press, because violence generally gets a lot of press. The press was negative because the protestors acted both incoherently, and violently. People accuse the protestors of surpressing speech because that’s what they did.
Maia,
It occurs to me it might be useful for you to describe how groups arrange public political rallies in NZ. Did the neo-Nazis just informally occupy a street corner? Or did the neo-Nazi’s pre-arrange and get permission? (Actually, was the rally held on a street corner? Or a park?)
I think things may be done quite differently in NZ and the US. In the US, if a group arranges a public rally in a park, they pretty much have dibs over the venue. Another group can gather–but the civil authorities will take measures to keep them physically separate to avoid violence. So, it would be very difficult for a counter-protest group to run the Nazis out of a park where they were having their rally.
SeattleMale said: It sounds to me as if Maia believes in free-speech for those with the ability to control it.
Maia believes in “free-speech” for those that are saying what she wants them to say. I get the feeling that if pro-lifers were outside of an abortion providing facility yelling “baby murderers” or “sluts” then she would be singing an entirely different tune about free-speech.
I believe Maia’s here position is wrong. And my experience has been that many people who support Maia’s position do so in a hypocritical manner.
Still, I don’t see that there’s nearly justification here to call Maia a hypocrite. Such an accusation would need more support. So far, most people are guessing about what she would do. It’s important to keep accusations of hypocrisy to the theoretical.
Actually, based on some of Maia’s other posts, I’m inclined to believe she is consistent until I hear otherwise. After all, she has views on other subjects which differ from the majority view.
Curiousgrrl: The stage was rushed and the speaker was roughed up.
Lucia: Perhaps she read the comments and found more information on the incident. I don’t think the actual events aren’t relevant to her argument–shouting down a speaker is worlds different from assaulting him.
Cool! A Free Speech issue where left-libertarians can provide a unique perspective!
Thus far, the person who has come closest to analyzing this correctly is RonF, in comment #4. Basically, what Maia refers to as “informal” free speech settings are usually public spaces, where the counter-protester has the same rights as the speaker. What Maia refers to as “formal” settings tend to be private property, where the owners should be able to host whatever speech they see fit without interruption from others.
However, appealing to the concept of private property does not answer the problem that Maia complains of, it just clarifies the problem. Maia is correct to note that those in power have better access to “formal” settings – in our (current) capitalist system, those with more property are the ones in power.
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon stated, “Property is Freedom,” “Property is Theft,” and “Property is Impossible.” The deffinition of property is the right of one person to exclude all others from the use of a place or thing. Without ownership of property, other people can interfere with whatever it is that you wish to do. Therefor, you must have property to be truely free. That is why property is freedom. But no person has a moral right to exclude others from using any place (or, arguably, any thing). The conflict between these two maxims is one reason why Proudhon believed that property is impossible.
I do not believe that property is impossible. But it requires rent sharing, that is property taxes at the highest sustainable rate, whose primary purpose is to divide among all individuals equally, to compensate them for being deprived of their right of access to the property. Which such funds, the others can, if they wish, buy their own property on which they can conduct their own free speech. Or they can buy a keg of beer and play Everquest. Their choice.
With adequate rent-sharing, the answer RonF gave in comment #4 would be the correct, moral answer to Maia’s comment. Currently, however, Maia’s complaints are entirely valid. This example illustrates why true Free Speech cannot exist without Ecconomic Justice.
Jake, with regards to your post #3:
You have quite fairly drawn my attention to specific cases that at least seem to contradict my more general statements.
At least one man claims [he had been apprehended by Minutemen]
On April 6, 2005, three Minuteman Project members took a picture and video of a 25-year-old alleged illegal immigrant posing with a T-shirt with one of them. The T-shirt, which was also worn by volunteer Bryan Barton, read “Bryan Barton caught me crossing the border and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”
Barton claims … However, Jose claimed …
Opposing claims, and an official investigation led to no criminal charges, and neither claimant has filed civil charges. Anything could have happened, but there’s no proof that anything contradicting what I said did happen.
People affiliated with the Minutemen have often used violence against Mexican immigrants in California and Arizona, up to and including gunfire, as admitted by Jim Chase of the San Diego Minutemen.
Here my general statement is effectively contradicted. I will say that this kind of activity does not seem to be the policy of the Minutemen. It invites some followup questions to properly place this in context with the Minuteman organization as a whole. Was this halted? Were there any charges/convictions? Did the Minutemen take any steps against the individuals? Did they change their practices to ensure that this kind of thing did not happen again? Is this something that’s happened elsewhere than San Diego? These guys may well be racist, but that doesn’t mean that the organization as a whole is or that the whole organization is loaded with racists.
“RonF:
I don’t see how the charge of “vile anti-immigration racism” can be supported.”
Jake:
Well, take a look at the last paragraph of the first quotation in response to you in this comment.
Hm. Someone alleged that a “hate crime” (quotes from the original) took place, but we don’t know who, what, or why. Same thing for “mocking” (my quotes, now). Thin gruel to support a charge of “vile anti-immigrant racism”.
Oh, and the rhetorical application of “anti-immigrant” to people opposing criminal crossing of American borders is truly a deliberately deceptive device to make them look as though they are intolerant of all non-native born people regardless of whether they are lawful or not. That, to me, deserves the label “vile”.
Yes, indeed. There are also plenty of Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Ecuadorians, etc. All of whom are currently regarded as Not White.
Mexico has some extremely restrictive immigration laws, and is not shy about enforcing them strictly and in a fashion that at times is at variance with Mexican law and human rights in general. Someone from Europe or Africa or Asia will more often cross American borders via a direct flight, or from another location. That’s not the fault of the Arizona Minutemen. I’d wager a significant sum that they’d love to find out that they’d discovered an Iranian or Syrian crossing the Mexican border.
My grandfather, who was an immigrant from Hungary in the 1930’s did just this. He was smuggled in on a freighter from Hamburg. It was many years (during which he worked, I assume that in your view this constitutes continuing to break the law) before he was able to become a citizen.
That was then, this is now. I don’t know what the laws about entering the U.S. or getting and keeping a job for a non-citizen were in in the 1930’s. But in any case, I was using present tense, not past.
However, appealing to the concept of private property does not answer the problem that Maia complains of, it just clarifies the problem. Maia is correct to note that those in power have better access to “formal” settings – in our (current) capitalist system, those with more property are the ones in power.
Or as H. L. Mencken said, “Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one.” This is true, but there are so many printing presses being run by people with differing motivations and desires that anyone with any argument that is well formed enough to listen to will find a press willing to print it for what they’re able to pay, even if that’s nothing.
And the freedom to acquire one’s own printing press/radio show/TV program/blog is non-trivial. Money is power, but money can be had for labor that has a marketplace value.
But no person has a moral right to exclude others from using any place (or, arguably, any thing).
What’s the rationale for this rather remarkable proposition?
Mexico has some extremely restrictive immigration laws, and is not shy about enforcing them strictly and in a fashion that at times is at variance with Mexican law and human rights in general.
There was a recent survey that indicated pretty strong support in the Mexican populace for those measures, too (considerably stronger than the support for similar measures in the US). Clearly we should end Mexican immigration – those people are anti-immigrant, and we can’t afford to make our country any more anti-immigrant than it already is.
Anything less than a complete ban on these dreadful racists would be VILE.
White racism against Mexicans is justified by Mexican racism against other people? Even giving you people the benifit of the doubt that this is meant as sarcasm, I honestly have no idea what the point you think you are making is supposed to be.
But no person has a moral right to exclude others from using any place (or, arguably, any thing).
What’s the rationale for this rather remarkable proposition?
The only reason you can think this is remarkable is that you have accepted our property laws without thinking about them. I admitted that things are arguable, so let’s start with places. If we assume freedom to be a moral good, then each individual is born a free being and can go where ever they like unless someone else has a good reason to stop them. “I own this place,” is a good legal reason, but not a good moral one. Why do you own it? Places – locations – are not created by people, so no one has a right to exclude others without their consent or without compensating them fairly. And as an historical matter, the title to every square inch of habitable land on Earth can be traced back to someone who took it by force from someone else.
There are no loopholes here. If you have an airtight reason why any person has a moral right to exclude other from land, write it up and you will become a famous philosopher. I have personally read just about everything writen on this particular topic of moral political philosophy, and no philosopher has an answer that even any other who believes in te right to own land will agree with. The philospher who came closest to an answer was John Locke, and we can discuss his ideas and Proviso if you wish, but believe me, whenever you start to tug on that Proviso, his whole argument unravels, and no philosopher has successfully deffended it.
White racism against Mexicans is justified by Mexican racism against other people?
Who’s talking about racism? I never mentioned racism; I was talking about immigration law, and how Mexico’s laws affect who shows up at the Mexican/American border to try to cross into America.
Now there’s a great way to try to win support through emotional appeals instead of reason and logic; jump right up and start crying “racism” when it has nothing to do with the topic at hand. I will admit that it works a lot, but it’s hardly honest or honorable.
The only reason you can think this is remarkable is that you have accepted our property laws without thinking about them.
So people who don’t agree with you can only hold their position through a lack of thought; that anyone who thinks about the topic would have to agree with you? Damn, that’s breathtaking arrogance.
Nope; I’m not going to grab this tarball. Remember, folks, when you wrestle with a pig in the mud the pig likes it and all you do is get dirty.
yes, decnavada, I agree: there is no inherent reason to adopt a particular property ownership scheme. And of course, not every society shares the one we have adopted.
RonF, i don’t think decnavada is saying that you must agree with em. Decnavada is surely aware that while property ownership is almost impossible to support, the reverse is also true. Em is merely noting that when you break it down to first principles, your position is really no more supportable than his.
decnavada: the mexico comment, i believe, was meant to undercut the unfortunate assumption that opposition to illegal immigration stems from racism (as opposed to a host of other factors like nationalism, economics, self interest, etc). That some racists are anti-illegal-immigration (AII) folks does not support the assumption that all (or most) AII folks are racist.
One easy way to point out the fallacy in that assumption is demonstrate a logical disconnect. If one claims not to be racist and if one claims AII views are racist, then one cannot hold AII views or promote strong AII laws.
Are you rejecting the Lockean notion as fallacious because of his Proviso stipulation, because of his translation of self-ownership to material ownership, or the entire premise from the beginning? I’m curious as to why you think persons have a moral right to exclude others from the use of their bodies and selves.
White racism against Mexicans is justified by Mexican racism against other people? Even giving you people the benifit of the doubt that this is meant as sarcasm, I honestly have no idea what the point you think you are making is supposed to be.
That if being opposed to illegal immigration is racist, then people advocating for a freer flow of Mexican immigrants are advocating for a mass importation of racists to the United States, because Mexicans are strongly opposed to illegal immigration.
Robert F,
What I think you are running up against is an attude which sees “racism” everywhere. My own sense is that productive conversation with people with such views is impossible, though I admire your pluck in trying.
Just to answer your question Lucia, I don’t believe that the neo nazis had organised any particular permission to be there.
For what it’s worth I am informed (although possibly not reliably) that at least one New Zealand neo nazi rally (in 2004 I think) which was preceded by a great deal of machismo on the part of the neonazis (“they’d better watch out if they try anything” etc) was broken up by some large gentlemen wearing fairy costumes (the fairies against facism) whereapon the neonazis were chased down the street.
So those on the right get to say that Mexican opposition to illegal immigation is racist, but if I then suggest that this implies the same about White American opposition to illegal imigration, *I’M* the one crying “racism” everywhere? I was just turning around the other side’s argument.
One easy way to point out the fallacy in that assumption is demonstrate a logical disconnect. If one claims not to be racist and if one claims AII views are racist, then one cannot hold AII views or promote strong AII laws.
I do not see the logical disconnect here. The conclusion does in fact flow from the premises.
That if being opposed to illegal immigration is racist, then people advocating for a freer flow of Mexican immigrants are advocating for a mass importation of racists to the United States, because Mexicans are strongly opposed to illegal immigration.
We are. I happen to know a lot of Mexicans very personally, and most (but not all) are, in fact, racists. Most, but not all, also oppose homosexuality. But their obnoxious beleifs do not justify racism against them. I also happen to know a lot of White Southerns very personally, and most, but not all, of them are also racists and homophobes. I do not want to throw them out of the country either.
The only reason you can think this is remarkable is that you have accepted our property laws without thinking about them.
So people who don’t agree with you can only hold their position through a lack of thought; that anyone who thinks about the topic would have to agree with you? Damn, that’s breathtaking arrogance.
Nope; I’m not going to grab this tarball. Remember, folks, when you wrestle with a pig in the mud the pig likes it and all you do is get dirty.
Nice of you to remain above the fray by taking my quote completely out of context. I was very clear that I was refering to this ONE VERY SPEPCIFIC ISSUE, and one on which any well known philosopher has ever come up with any argument supported by even any other well-know philosopher who agrees with the position. And if you had quoted the rest someone could see that what I really said was that you EITHER had not thought about this OR you have the potential to become an extremely famous philosopher. AND I pointed out that I say that from a position of education, like a physicist telling someone who disagrees with Realativity that either they have not thought about it OR they have the potential to become a very famous physicist.
I’m curious as to why you think persons have a moral right to exclude others from the use of their bodies and selves.
The “Property is Freedom” quotation – with which I heartily agree – points out that SOME exclusive access to property by an individual is neccessary for that individual to be free. As a matter of physical reality, I – my consiousness – is trapped inside my body. Therefore, in order for an individual to be free, their property MUST include their body. Of course, real freedom also requires exclusive access to property outside of (external to) my body. I need food to eat, a place to sleep, air to breath, paths to travel on, etc. But, while I MUST own the SPECIFIC body my mind is trapped inside to be free, I do not need any SPECIFIC peice of external property to be free. I could live in the U.S. or Egypt, eat corn or rice, drive on roads or sail on rivers, etc. So while everyone needs external property to be free, no specific person needs any specific item of external property to be free. The complex task then becomes deciding how to divy up that which everyone needs but no one has an a priori claim to in a way that respects each individual’s freedom and equality.
decnavada,
just to clarify: I am fairly certain that seattle male, ronF and robert do NOT view opposition to illegal immigration as inherently racist. Neither do I. So I think we are talking in circles and/or miscommunicating.
But let’s be clear. Do YOU think opposition to illegal immigration is inherently racist? Your writings suggest so but perhaps this too is a miscommunication.
It is also unclear whether you are conflating behavior which has an EFFECT on people of a certain race, with behavior that is BECAUSE people are of a certain race. So when you say
I happen to know a lot of Mexicans very personally, and most (but not all) are, in fact, racists. Most, but not all, also oppose homosexuality. But their obnoxious beleifs do not justify racism against them.
what do you mean by that? Are you implying that dislike of those beliefs is tantamount to racism? It’s unclear.
If persons have a “right” to free speech, at least to announce and issue free political speech in public forum, then some sort of ensuing property entitlement would seem to be necessary. The physical space in from which to issue the speech, the template material on which to scrawl a message to pass around. If there is no just property claim to these components and any person has the right to seize your speaking space or take and use your purchased paper on which you were going to print your pamphlets, then free speech seems only to mean communications and utterances that one person can issue with just their physical body at their disposal, unless that one person happens to be intimidating enough to ward off paper thieves.
I think your demarcation between “legal” and “moral” is stark and misleading. Most political philosophy does not declare what speed limit or tax percentage rate is a priori just. Usually the theorists just pass the buck and say that if the jurisdiction has some kind of adjudication or consultation mechanism that meets X-moral stipulations, then the ensuing laws and specific directives are just or have moral legitimacy. This is not to say that any one jurisdiction meets those moral stipulations (most probably don’t).
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=557
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=360
The first article has some racist quotes from one of the MM founders, the second illustrates t he history of this type of project and its close association with white supremacy as a political doctrine.
Megalodon-
The tone of your paragraph after my statement you quoted sounds like a resepctful attempt to challenge the quote, but your paragraph offers only support for it. Yes, I totally agree that some form of property entitlement is necessary for effective free speech, because of just the problems you describe. That fact is one of the reasons that developing a just system of external property entitlements is so complex.
I am a licenced attorney and a semi-professional political philosopher. All I meant by my demarkation between “legal” and “moral” is that the question “Is it legal?'”, the question lawyers ask, is different from, “Is it moral?” or “Was the law established in a moral manner?”, the questions political philosophers ask. Again, I do not think you are disagreeing with me, I just was not entirely clear.
Sailorman-
I agree that anti-imigration is not inheriently bigoted in the same sense that ID is not inheriently religious or Holcaust skepticism is not inheriently anti-semitic. It is logically possible for an atheist to believe that ancient aliens created DNA and helped along evolution, for a proud, devout Jew to question the evidence of what happened at the concentration camps, or for the proudly Mexican-American child of illegal immigrant farmworkers to believe that it would have been more proper for her parents to have worked themselves up to middle-class in Mexico first so they could afford to come here legally. With six billion people in the world, there is probably at least one person who fits each of these descriptions. As a matter of practical reality, however, the vast majority of ID proponents are lying creatonists, the vast majority of Holocaust skeptics are anti-semites, and the vast majority of anti-immigration supporters are bigots.
However, something you wrote earlier has made me modify this from “racist” to “bigoted”. You mentioned nationalism as a possible explanation, & I would agree that may be a big reason. Besides racism and nationalism, there are other forms of bigotry that may be playing a part. Pro-English bigotry, anti-Catholicism, and a more general kind of us – versus – them cultural bigotry may be a factor among people who would not care if their neighbors were brown as long as they assimilated properly. Racism deffinately plays a large part, but the term is probably too narrow for the whole movement. The more general term “bigotry” is probably more accurate.
It is probably more accurate to describe most Mexicans as bigots rather than racist for similar reasons, since the cultural expression of “racism” in Mexico is very different from here. I certainly do not think it is racist to oppose thier obnoxious beliefs, and we should attempt to persuade them to change, just as we should attempt to persuade most White Southerners to abandon their obnoxious beliefs. What is racist is to assume that all Mexicans think like this and to treat them all the same as a result. To continue the analogy, I believe that Hollywood and the rest of the major media horribly stereotype White Southerners based on the bigoted beliefs that most of them have, and this is very unfair dispite the fact that such beliefs are pervasive and obnoxious. I do not think my stance is a contradiction. Rather, I think the contradiction is to be bigoted against a group of people based on the bigoted beliefs of many in that group.
Decnavada,
You need to read more carefully.
You are discussing “anti immigration” sentiments in response to my post.
However, I was discussing “anti-illegal-immigration” sentiments.
That is an excruciatingly important distinction. I am aware that many proponents of illegal immigration attempt to conflate the two types of opposition. After all, it means they get to use handy pejoratives like “bigot” and “racist” and the like. But let’s keep things clear for this discussion, shall we?
I also note from your post that you are responding to some of my statements regarding racism with answers regarding bigotry. Again: i’d ask you to be a bit more careful in your reading. I am extremely aware of what points I am answering, what you have said, and what I am responding to. As a “licensed attorney and a semi-professional political philosopher” I imagine you are capable of accuracy, and I’d appreciate it if you’d return the courtesy.
Finally: “As a matter of practical reality, however, the vast majority of ID proponents are lying creatonists, the vast majority of Holocaust skeptics are anti-semites, and the vast majority of anti-immigration supporters are bigots.”
Hoooo boy. Some philosophy there. This type of statement is pretty meaningless in the debate. And though I’ve no sympathy for ID folks, starting off on this type of ad hom description is a poor substitute for the level of discourse you claim to prefer. Wouldn’t you say?
I also note from your post that you are responding to some of my statements regarding racism with answers regarding bigotry. Again: i’d ask you to be a bit more careful in your reading. I am extremely aware of what points I am answering, what you have said, and what I am responding to. As a “licensed attorney and a semi-professional political philosopher” I imagine you are capable of accuracy, and I’d appreciate it if you’d return the courtesy.
OK, here you are going off the rails. I explicitly stated I was switching from “racism” to “bigotry”, I stated it was because I was persuaded by something you wrote, and that I was switching for purposes of accuracy and I explained why. I might be wrong, and if so you can explain that, but please tell me what curtesy I am supposed to return when you accuse me of not doing precisely what I clearly attempted to do.
As for the “ad hom description”, the intent of proponents, when clear and overwelming, is relevant to public policy debates. If ID was mainly pushed by atheist who believed in an ancient alien seeder race, it would not be inappropriate to teach it in science classes. But the judge in the most recent ID case ruled against it because of empirical evidence that the proponents were motivated by religion. You may disagree that the bigoted intent of the anti-imigrant folks is clear and overwhelming, but that is an empirical question.
Finally, arguments about levels of enforcement are inseperable from arguments about the policy behind the law when one side disagrees with the policy. You might want to be able to say to me, “OK, I understand that you believe it is immoral to have laws that keep so many people out of the United States, but as long as those laws exist, shouldn’t we promote respect for the law by spending more money to enforce it untill your side can change it?” Well, no actually. Since I think the law is immoral, I would much rather spend the extra money keeping sexual preditors in jail longer, buying more armor for our troops, increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit, increasing inforcement of laws against discrimination in housing or hiring, or even lowering the corporate income tax. And conversely, both illegal immigration and illegal housing discrimination are widespread, and the only reason a person would support spending increased money on enforcement of immigration laws but not more money on enforcement of housing discrimination laws is that they dislike imigration more than they dislike housing discrimination. A logically consistent person who wanted to promote respect for the laws by increasing enforcement where ever laws are widely ignored would promote increased enforcement of both anti-immigration laws and anti-housing discrimination. I have never in my life seen anyone make this argument.
the only reason a person would support spending increased money on enforcement of immigration laws but not more money on enforcement of housing discrimination laws is that they dislike imigration more than they dislike housing discrimination.
Another reason, and one that in my opinion is much more likely, is that they may believe that the level of actual housing discrimination crimes (or any other particular crime you want to match up in this zero-sum game) is low, represents a low threat to public order/rights and is being adequately held in check by current enforcement efforts. Whereas the level of criminal crossing of the American border may be regarded as much higher, represents a high threat to public order and rights and is being inadequately held in check by current enforcement efforts.
It’s at moments like this that I am reminded of why I am glad that I do live in the USA, and not in the UK, France, or other Western democracies. The German and Austrian silencing of neo-Nazis, the Canadian silencing of similar groups, the appalling French decisions about headscarves and the Armenian Genocide — all of these remind me that I am right to still send money to the American Civil Liberties Union.
It also reminds me of why, at the end of the day, I am a liberal in the Isaiah Berlin/John Stuart Mill/ John Rawls vein, and not a radical socialist.
I’ve been away, but I’ll try to address some of the issues.
I want to make it absolutely clear that I don’t support any state imposition on freedom of speech. That doesn’t matter whether the people involved are neo-nazis, anti-abortionists, or anyone else. That several people in this thread (and Hugo is just the latest) have conflated the issues between state interference with what people can say, and the response of ordinary people.
I think, as I argued, that is completely OK to go into the physical space that someone is speaking in to to present a different message.
I think the situation in New Zealand around protests is a little different. You don’t have to apply for a permit to meet in a park or any other public space (except parliament). Technically you’re supposed to apply for a permit to march on the road, but apparently that requirement wouldn’t stand up in court. Almost all groups I am part with refuse to apply for permits, and with some notable exceptions have no problems.
State required permits for political demonstrations seem to me to be a huge imposition on freedom of speech. In fact it seems clear to me, from what I’ve read about people in New York trying to organise marches against the war in Iraq that, in the ways that are most important to me, Americans don’t have freedom of speech
RonF – just for the record I don’t think there were a few bad apples in that protest. I think there were a few good apples in the protest. I would say that I think that protest was homophobic and misogynist (just like the border patrol is racist), but that doesn’t mean that every individual is racist
I think, as I argued, that is completely OK to go into the physical space that someone is speaking in to to present a different message.
Outstanding. You’ve just reduced the social discourse to a test of physical strength and ruthlessness.
That’s ridiculous – there’s no strength required to go on stage, or go to a street corner or go anywhere, just a physical ability to move. There’s no ruthlessness either. I’ve absolutely no idea what you could possibly be talking about.
I think, as I argued, that is completely OK to go into the physical space that someone is speaking in to to present a different message.
Let’s avoid generalities: Is it OK to shove a speaker, breaking his glasses, because you want to present a different message?
And how is that different from smacking your wife upside the face to present a different message than what she’s saying?
That’s ridiculous – there’s no strength required to go on stage, or go to a street corner or go anywhere, just a physical ability to move. There’s no ruthlessness either. I’ve absolutely no idea what you could possibly be talking about.
I’m talking about thugs bullying people, Maia, like the thugs you approve of bullying the speaker at Columbia. Whoever is willing to be rougher and more intimidating, gets the stage. Whoever is willing to shout louder is the one who is heard. Whoever is stronger wins the struggle for the microphone.
Most people who have rented a podium or obtained their street permit and are expounding a message usually do not like forfeiting their space and ceasing their message so that a contrary message can take its place. Unless you are saying that one of the parties has an obligation to forfeit their speaking space, your proposition does seem to court violence between factions who want the same speaking space.
So how about it then? If a rival political faction wants to commandeer my microphone and podium while I am using it, am I obligated to forfeit it to them? Or can I assert my use of it and try to prevent them from taking it?
If La Raza or the Chicano Caucus were giving a speech and bedecked the stage with supporting placards, can the Minutemen mount the stage and tear down those posters and replace them with anti-immigration ones? If the John Birch Society has purchased paper upon which to print their pamphlet or circular, can the International Socialist Organization freely seize that paper to print and promulgate their message? The competing groups that want the use of the same space or materials in question are certainly not going to agree over who gets to use them.
If Maia is describing the Oct. 21 National Front Rally in NZ, it appears some sort of violence did break out.
This quote is from Infoshop news which seems to approve of the behaviors of those alleged to have done the pelting.
I found other stories using Google News. Reading them overall, it does appear the neo-nazi’s speech was, at least in part, silenced not by simple shouting. The silencing involved also involved pelting with bagels and spitting.
I have to agree with Hugo in general. I certainly don’t prefer silencing speech I don’t like by pelting people with bagels and spitting on them.
RonF – just for the record I don’t think there were a few bad apples in that protest. I think there were a few good apples in the protest. I would say that I think that protest was homophobic and misogynist (just like the border patrol is racist), but that doesn’t mean that every individual is racist.
Do you think that the Border Patrol is racist (a generality covering the whole Border Patrol) because of the racism offered by the one person you talked to, or si there some other evidence that the organization as a whole is racist?
I think, as I argued, that is completely OK to go into the physical space that someone is speaking in to to present a different message.
It seems to me, then, that in such circumstances the people who speak the loudest and the most aggressively are those who have freedom of speech, and others do not. I think that when one group is allowed to out-shout and shout down another, freedom of speech is lost. The idea of freedom of speech is that all should have the opportunity to present their views without interference, no matter whether they are in the minority or not. This enables a free people to make their own judgement, rather than having one imposed through suppression of speech.
Also; do you mean to say that if I hire a hall and invite the public to listen to me expound my views, I should have no right to secure the space and ensure my ability to speak without interference?
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