I had never heard Mr. Raunch before, but I found many of his comments very compelling. When he moved into a fuller description of his recent book, I felt like I was listening to Sam Harris. The idea that all of life can be condensed to a rationalist appraisal, still smacks to me of a very partisan, leftist viewpoint. The boiling point of water is probably not the best example to use. Those who study science, and more specifically statistics, know that nothing is ever fully proven. We will be wise to dial back our certitude.
For example, why not reduce the population of the globe to attack climate change? The moral issues have to be seen as inextricably threading through the material, and that forces us to search for moral answers that are more absolute and leave us back into discernment. Sorry to say. Have the faith traditions gotten things wrong? Absolutely. Is the climate crowd absolutely rocksolid on the best economic solutions for our planet? Absolutely not.
Once Mr. Ranch left his book and started speaking about Trump, I knew we were going down the rabbit hole. I will come back and listen to the rest of the recording later.
I have told my children, all educated at liberal colleges, that I will always try to find the absolute middle on all issues in the cultural moment. Would that all of us could have that attitude.
When most people think about who is banning free speech, they think of Republicans and Conservatives. They look at the book bans they see in their localities. They see the Republican hysteria over teaching Black history. There is a boisterous Conservative cluster of snowflakes who do not want to hear opposing views. These Conservative snowflakes are scaring people into voting for Progressives as the only alternative. See Chicago and Wisconsin.
The only method Republicans can use is to suppress votes. It is the Conservative book banners who are the free speech obstructionists.
Pretty interesting. Always worth listening to Mr. Rauch.
But Trump as the first US president to use all the means at his disposal to spread lies and misinformation? Hardly. Trump just had more tools at his disposal.
As to collusion Mr. Rauch would be well-advised to read Eli Lake in "Commentary" - "Framed and Guilty".
Or read Mr. Lake about the vial pursuit of Mike Flynn where they threatened Mr. Flynn by going after his son.
Or read about Merrick Garland sending the FBI to investigate "angry" parents at school board meetings.
Or the 75 year old Trump CFO doing five months at Rikers because he would not implicate Trump.
The people Rauch is defending are pretty vial and willing to use any and every means available to achieve their ends.
By the end of this conversation with Rauch, I was both frustrated and saddened. It was a perfect illustration of Trump Derangement Syndrome among otherwise sane liberals (see also Sam Harris and Robert Reich). Rauch spent about 40 minutes erecting a rhetorical monument to free speech and liberalism rooted in Enlightenment values, then pivoted to rank authoritarianism at the mention of Donald J. Trump. You could see the tell in his body language as he tensed up and set his jaw when Glenn raised the question of Trump's purported threat to liberal democracy. Not only did Rauch spout off the tired, MSM talking points (collusion is well-established, Trump spews disinformation the same way Putin does, WaPo "fact checkers" found 30,000 "lies"), when confronted with competing evidence such as James Gerth's careful defenestration of the Russia collusion story in the Columbia Journalism Review, he blithely waived it off and continued with his preferred narrative. The icing on the cake was Rauch's blatant contradiction of his own liberal principles when he extolled the Stanford Internet Observatory as an example of fighting disinformation. Even granting, for argument sake, the sincerity of the Stanford operation, it functions as an unaccountable star chamber (ditto for FaceBook's content review board) which has, as Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger and others have demonstrated, run amok by throttling perfectly legitimate information and opinion (See the Great Barrington Declaration, TERFs, sarcasm about elections, etc., etc.) in the name of controlling disinformation. Rauch, after eloquently explaining how the "constitution of knowledge" should follow the principles of J.S. Mill and James Madison to assure that bias is set against bias and ambition against ambition in a regulated marketplace of ideas where speech is free and processes of empirical analysis and decision are transparent, advocates for secretive panels to "pre-bunk" and censor. The Twitter Files exposure of how the infamous Hunter Biden laptop story was "pre-bunked" by National Security folks, tech platforms, and their aligned NGOs at the Aspen Institute is positively Orwellian.
You bring up some interesting considerations. But it could be said that folk wisdom beat today's lawmaking legislatures to the punch, having seen the startling and unwanted consequences in offspring from marrying close kin. (And mating seems intended to produce offspring, to propagate the species, though that seems a non-starter with same-sex couples, unless they include adoption int he mix.) Mother Nature enforces her own biological laws in such matters, and hers are impossible to ignore. Legislators too often are swayed by fuzzy thinking;, loyalty to selective creeds; built-in prrejducies; long-standing custom which acquires a life of its own; etc.
And long ago, nicety and legality were the least ot it: Clans raided one another for the purpose of kidnapping wife-worthy females, spilling blood if necessary.
It is impossible to cross unrelated breeds, say, a chicken with a dog. Or even a chicken with a duck. Nothing happens. Built-in incompatibility ends the experiment. The most extreme success is mating a horse with a donkey to get a mule. Nature does allow that oddity. Beyond that, fugeddaboudit.
Legislative bodies seem compelled to affirm such preexisting mistakes by passing laws against marrying kin, to formalize the understanding. Inbreeding is not worth the risk of unwanted consequences. So are you lobbying for a dead or decided issue? We can change jurisdictions to one that favors our wishes just by packing up and moving. There are other more pressing social issues in need of discussion and addressing.
Gay marriage directly affects only the pair in question, unless you want to address the objections by either family, which are driven by forces of potential social disapproval. Sort of a different take on "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?" Time was when it was unheard of in US society. With time, the idea meets lessening resistance. In the end, only the pair in question are direcdtly affected by it.
Need we mention arranged marriages to unite two kingdoms? History has numerous examples.
Some say intermarrying can be an affront to society. But who gets to dictate society's conclusioins, or how any two people become a couple? Where does free will get superseded by considerations of clan, wealth, religion, politics, position, race, etc.? If disowned, the couple can always migrate to where it is condoned or accepted. Self-fulfillment can be vetoed only where following through results in tangible harm to others, almost impossible to prove. Psychological harm or discomfort seems not to count. If couples can marry to serve political purpose, as has long occurrred, why not to serve the personal purpose of achieving happiness for the couple in question? Is fealty to group more important than fealty to self? Ask Romeo and Giuliette. Or, the couple in question can always forego the formality of marriage; although in many states, prolonged cohabitation is deemed de facto marriage.
Yet, even this is in conflict with any law still existing that prohibits two people not of the same race to marry, even though this condemns them to violate the social norm that says shacking up is sinful, and only marriage can redeem the two in question. Only in America? (This may be an obsolete consideration. Virginia was the last state to outlaw intermarriage, but that was negated in Loving vs. Virginia, ending the prohibition.)
Free speech under under GOP leadership (white domination)? NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Republican lawmakers took the first steps Monday to expel three Democratic members from the GOP-dominant House for their role in a recent gun control protest at the state Capitol.
The extraordinarily rare move resulted in a chaotic and fiery confrontation between lawmakers and supporters opposing the move and has further fractured an already deep political division inside the Tennessee Legislature.
Resolutions have been filed against Reps. Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson after they led chants from the House floor with supporters in the gallery last Thursday. The resolution declared that the three had participated in “disorderly behavior” and “did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives.”
Interesting conversation, and some interesting points have been made. Yet, somehow, they managed to avoid the elephant in the room. The elephant is the constitutional, God given right to speak and to be heard by anyone who cares to listen. These two gentleman, in spite of their words to the contrary, converse as if they are right, and anyone who disagrees is wrong. That is both dangerous and disgusting.
The gentlemen in the above conversation consider the advantages of "allowing" free speech, but never consider that it is a right. Hitler is mentioned, and the efforts of the Weimer republic to censor him. Why go way back to the 1930s in Germany? We have that right now, in the USA. We have an ongoing effort to censor anyone who supports Trump, and Trump himself. Excuses are made. Apologists claim that Twitter, FB, etc are privately owned and can do as they please. Well, it's STILL censorship. The term "hate speech" was invented as a justification for doing what the first amendment specifically prohibits. Some poor schmuck in a bakery declined to bake a gay wedding cake, and he is being dragged all over the courtrooms. In a sense, he was a private entity practicing censorship. But he has no right to do that, for one reason, and one reason only: He is on the wrong side of political tyranny.
Many years ago, people warned that we were becoming a socialist state. Nobody said, "Well, yes, but I WANT a socialist state." Instead, they claimed that it was ignorant alarmists making false claims. Today, we are a socialist state.
Not that many years ago, people warned that we ae becoming a banana republic. Nobody has said, "Yes, but I want a banana republic." Instead, they said it was ignorant people making false claims. Today, we are a bnana republic.
Today, I am saying we are becoming a police state. People, right here on this page, will claim that I am wrong. Well, it doesn't matter what you say; I am right.
There is the old saying that nobody wants to say anymore: "I completely disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Anyone who in any way supports or condones censorship is the enemy of freedom. You are NOT an exception.
It is possibly good to remember that Sullivan v NYT helped to widen freedom of speech and allowed that political speech could be robust and forthright had to do with civil rights.
Equally people like the broadcaster Howard K Smith used freedom of speech and freedom of the press to highlight what was happening with the Freedom Riders in Birmingham AL. CBS let him go for his pains and he eventually ends being employed by ABC.
Freedom of Speech protects minorities and it enabled the civil rights movement to grow.
I don't believe the Leftwaffe are going to give up this winning technique anytime soon. During the cultural revolution in China, logic and rational verbal discourse didn't seem to sway the screaming mob. It will have about the same effect here. The smart ones had an exit plan. And remember how it was ended. Think loud noises and shallow graves.
Side note: if the early opponents of gay marriage could have seen the mission creep of this proposal, to have foreseen a latex gimp on a leash with a rainbow dildo hat at a school board meeting, where the merits of a discussion of lube and buttplugs in a second graders class should be appropriate. Do you think they would have fought harder against it or welcomed it sooner?
I suggest that anyone who is hostile to free speech or finds them "inconvenient" in securing rights try living in a place where this freedom is not secured. Freedom of speech is a fundamental principle of any democracy, republic, or other form of govt in which citizens freely elect their representatives. It is NOT part of centrally-run, authoritarian systems and it never has been. If progressives see a problem with free speech, then a sane person should immediately see a problem with progressives.
Richard Herrnstein, first author of The Bell Curve, was a behavioral psychologist who ran B.F. Skinner's pigeon lab at Harvard. His main contribution to science was the study of choice behavior. His work epitomized the study of behavioral malleability. To characterize him as a strong proponent of genetic explanations of behavior demonstrates a poverty of scholarship.
It has reached the point w,here I am no longer willing to argue with the pRogRessive facists. I simply double down and camp it up like Yannopolis or Kaye. Anyone who knows Socrates knows that all men are basically fools who see only a vague shadow of the truth. Especially moral truth. So the strategy is to Force the little hubristic moralistic evangelist dweebs, that they are producing the wrong effect and advocating the wrong solutions. Show them that logic and reason are their friends, not enemies. It is also necessary to show love and tolerance for all gods creatures, those who are heretics and traitors to western civilization and science and humanity. Tolerance and reason are appropriate for those who are not totally nuts. For those who still believe in objective truth and in evidence pro and con. This is hard for me because I have emotions too. If I am attacked personally then I attack right back. Alas, I am not a patient teacher. I tend to counterattack and declare Total war to the death against the enemies of scientific culture. This is my emotional reaction. Alas, this causes escalation.
That said, might there be more than one way to skin a cat? Full disclosure: I am not a lawyer. When confronted by assertions such as this one, I reflect on pertinent examples such as the following:
It's always better when the public mood tends to be accepting of reversing an existing law, but where was the wooing of the public, to pave the way as this viewpoint suggests is necessary, before the NAACP argued and won the Topeka school desegregation case? The Kansas folk who supported segregation were not lobbied to soften resistance. The arguments were made, and the court agreed. Done deal.
I remember no courting of public opinion leading up to legalizing interracial marriage in Loving vs. Virginia, the last hold-out state prohibiting it.
The "drys" and the "wets" were vociferous promoting their respective viewpoints, with the "wets" outnumbering the "drys," yet Prohibition was enacted anyway, and devil take the hindmost.
The military draft was instituted without a public referendum, unless you want to call the legislation autnorizing it a public vote in favor by proxy, through elected representatives.
These are just a few examples supporting my doubts on the propoosition as stated. But I would defer to superior counterarguments, if there are any.
Dr Loury poses interesting questions. I contemplated subscribing to this substack, but the obvious bias makes me resist the urge. Governors are banning books and dictating what history is allowed. These impositions are being done by Conservatives, but the bias is that the problem is Progressives. I’ll come by to listen to the argument the “other side” is making, but I don’t expect to hear a full discussion of a topic.
The problem I see with today's approach to free speech is discerning what is constructive purposeful dialogue vs name-calling ad hominem argument. Columbia Law students are protesting the appearance of Justice Kavanaugh, accusing him of misogyny and White Supremacy, yet as law students they should be engaging him on his judicial views.
The constructive debates over education for minorities, or for treatment of Transgender youth should not be taken up with accusations of racism or transphobia, instead focused on the pros, cons and studies for certain approaches.
Likewise, environmental concerns vs. climate apocalypse- we can have serious discussions about keeping the environment healthy without resorting to calling people "climate deniers".
The mere fact is that Law schools and even Medical schools should be environments where honest and vigorous debate are encouraged, not discouraged. Universities should not be "safe spaces" for the avoidance of psychological trauma due to exposure to differing views and opinions.
I had never heard Mr. Raunch before, but I found many of his comments very compelling. When he moved into a fuller description of his recent book, I felt like I was listening to Sam Harris. The idea that all of life can be condensed to a rationalist appraisal, still smacks to me of a very partisan, leftist viewpoint. The boiling point of water is probably not the best example to use. Those who study science, and more specifically statistics, know that nothing is ever fully proven. We will be wise to dial back our certitude.
For example, why not reduce the population of the globe to attack climate change? The moral issues have to be seen as inextricably threading through the material, and that forces us to search for moral answers that are more absolute and leave us back into discernment. Sorry to say. Have the faith traditions gotten things wrong? Absolutely. Is the climate crowd absolutely rocksolid on the best economic solutions for our planet? Absolutely not.
Once Mr. Ranch left his book and started speaking about Trump, I knew we were going down the rabbit hole. I will come back and listen to the rest of the recording later.
I have told my children, all educated at liberal colleges, that I will always try to find the absolute middle on all issues in the cultural moment. Would that all of us could have that attitude.
When most people think about who is banning free speech, they think of Republicans and Conservatives. They look at the book bans they see in their localities. They see the Republican hysteria over teaching Black history. There is a boisterous Conservative cluster of snowflakes who do not want to hear opposing views. These Conservative snowflakes are scaring people into voting for Progressives as the only alternative. See Chicago and Wisconsin.
The only method Republicans can use is to suppress votes. It is the Conservative book banners who are the free speech obstructionists.
Pretty interesting. Always worth listening to Mr. Rauch.
But Trump as the first US president to use all the means at his disposal to spread lies and misinformation? Hardly. Trump just had more tools at his disposal.
As to collusion Mr. Rauch would be well-advised to read Eli Lake in "Commentary" - "Framed and Guilty".
Or read Mr. Lake about the vial pursuit of Mike Flynn where they threatened Mr. Flynn by going after his son.
Or read about Merrick Garland sending the FBI to investigate "angry" parents at school board meetings.
Or the 75 year old Trump CFO doing five months at Rikers because he would not implicate Trump.
The people Rauch is defending are pretty vial and willing to use any and every means available to achieve their ends.
By the end of this conversation with Rauch, I was both frustrated and saddened. It was a perfect illustration of Trump Derangement Syndrome among otherwise sane liberals (see also Sam Harris and Robert Reich). Rauch spent about 40 minutes erecting a rhetorical monument to free speech and liberalism rooted in Enlightenment values, then pivoted to rank authoritarianism at the mention of Donald J. Trump. You could see the tell in his body language as he tensed up and set his jaw when Glenn raised the question of Trump's purported threat to liberal democracy. Not only did Rauch spout off the tired, MSM talking points (collusion is well-established, Trump spews disinformation the same way Putin does, WaPo "fact checkers" found 30,000 "lies"), when confronted with competing evidence such as James Gerth's careful defenestration of the Russia collusion story in the Columbia Journalism Review, he blithely waived it off and continued with his preferred narrative. The icing on the cake was Rauch's blatant contradiction of his own liberal principles when he extolled the Stanford Internet Observatory as an example of fighting disinformation. Even granting, for argument sake, the sincerity of the Stanford operation, it functions as an unaccountable star chamber (ditto for FaceBook's content review board) which has, as Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger and others have demonstrated, run amok by throttling perfectly legitimate information and opinion (See the Great Barrington Declaration, TERFs, sarcasm about elections, etc., etc.) in the name of controlling disinformation. Rauch, after eloquently explaining how the "constitution of knowledge" should follow the principles of J.S. Mill and James Madison to assure that bias is set against bias and ambition against ambition in a regulated marketplace of ideas where speech is free and processes of empirical analysis and decision are transparent, advocates for secretive panels to "pre-bunk" and censor. The Twitter Files exposure of how the infamous Hunter Biden laptop story was "pre-bunked" by National Security folks, tech platforms, and their aligned NGOs at the Aspen Institute is positively Orwellian.
To SezWhom:
You bring up some interesting considerations. But it could be said that folk wisdom beat today's lawmaking legislatures to the punch, having seen the startling and unwanted consequences in offspring from marrying close kin. (And mating seems intended to produce offspring, to propagate the species, though that seems a non-starter with same-sex couples, unless they include adoption int he mix.) Mother Nature enforces her own biological laws in such matters, and hers are impossible to ignore. Legislators too often are swayed by fuzzy thinking;, loyalty to selective creeds; built-in prrejducies; long-standing custom which acquires a life of its own; etc.
And long ago, nicety and legality were the least ot it: Clans raided one another for the purpose of kidnapping wife-worthy females, spilling blood if necessary.
It is impossible to cross unrelated breeds, say, a chicken with a dog. Or even a chicken with a duck. Nothing happens. Built-in incompatibility ends the experiment. The most extreme success is mating a horse with a donkey to get a mule. Nature does allow that oddity. Beyond that, fugeddaboudit.
Legislative bodies seem compelled to affirm such preexisting mistakes by passing laws against marrying kin, to formalize the understanding. Inbreeding is not worth the risk of unwanted consequences. So are you lobbying for a dead or decided issue? We can change jurisdictions to one that favors our wishes just by packing up and moving. There are other more pressing social issues in need of discussion and addressing.
Gay marriage directly affects only the pair in question, unless you want to address the objections by either family, which are driven by forces of potential social disapproval. Sort of a different take on "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?" Time was when it was unheard of in US society. With time, the idea meets lessening resistance. In the end, only the pair in question are direcdtly affected by it.
Need we mention arranged marriages to unite two kingdoms? History has numerous examples.
Some say intermarrying can be an affront to society. But who gets to dictate society's conclusioins, or how any two people become a couple? Where does free will get superseded by considerations of clan, wealth, religion, politics, position, race, etc.? If disowned, the couple can always migrate to where it is condoned or accepted. Self-fulfillment can be vetoed only where following through results in tangible harm to others, almost impossible to prove. Psychological harm or discomfort seems not to count. If couples can marry to serve political purpose, as has long occurrred, why not to serve the personal purpose of achieving happiness for the couple in question? Is fealty to group more important than fealty to self? Ask Romeo and Giuliette. Or, the couple in question can always forego the formality of marriage; although in many states, prolonged cohabitation is deemed de facto marriage.
Yet, even this is in conflict with any law still existing that prohibits two people not of the same race to marry, even though this condemns them to violate the social norm that says shacking up is sinful, and only marriage can redeem the two in question. Only in America? (This may be an obsolete consideration. Virginia was the last state to outlaw intermarriage, but that was negated in Loving vs. Virginia, ending the prohibition.)
Adam & Eve were spared such considerations.
Ain't love grand? What have I overlooked?
Free speech is better predicated on accumulation of wealth and power.
Free speech under under GOP leadership (white domination)? NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Republican lawmakers took the first steps Monday to expel three Democratic members from the GOP-dominant House for their role in a recent gun control protest at the state Capitol.
The extraordinarily rare move resulted in a chaotic and fiery confrontation between lawmakers and supporters opposing the move and has further fractured an already deep political division inside the Tennessee Legislature.
Resolutions have been filed against Reps. Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson after they led chants from the House floor with supporters in the gallery last Thursday. The resolution declared that the three had participated in “disorderly behavior” and “did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives.”
Interesting conversation, and some interesting points have been made. Yet, somehow, they managed to avoid the elephant in the room. The elephant is the constitutional, God given right to speak and to be heard by anyone who cares to listen. These two gentleman, in spite of their words to the contrary, converse as if they are right, and anyone who disagrees is wrong. That is both dangerous and disgusting.
The gentlemen in the above conversation consider the advantages of "allowing" free speech, but never consider that it is a right. Hitler is mentioned, and the efforts of the Weimer republic to censor him. Why go way back to the 1930s in Germany? We have that right now, in the USA. We have an ongoing effort to censor anyone who supports Trump, and Trump himself. Excuses are made. Apologists claim that Twitter, FB, etc are privately owned and can do as they please. Well, it's STILL censorship. The term "hate speech" was invented as a justification for doing what the first amendment specifically prohibits. Some poor schmuck in a bakery declined to bake a gay wedding cake, and he is being dragged all over the courtrooms. In a sense, he was a private entity practicing censorship. But he has no right to do that, for one reason, and one reason only: He is on the wrong side of political tyranny.
Many years ago, people warned that we were becoming a socialist state. Nobody said, "Well, yes, but I WANT a socialist state." Instead, they claimed that it was ignorant alarmists making false claims. Today, we are a socialist state.
Not that many years ago, people warned that we ae becoming a banana republic. Nobody has said, "Yes, but I want a banana republic." Instead, they said it was ignorant people making false claims. Today, we are a bnana republic.
Today, I am saying we are becoming a police state. People, right here on this page, will claim that I am wrong. Well, it doesn't matter what you say; I am right.
There is the old saying that nobody wants to say anymore: "I completely disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Anyone who in any way supports or condones censorship is the enemy of freedom. You are NOT an exception.
It is possibly good to remember that Sullivan v NYT helped to widen freedom of speech and allowed that political speech could be robust and forthright had to do with civil rights.
Equally people like the broadcaster Howard K Smith used freedom of speech and freedom of the press to highlight what was happening with the Freedom Riders in Birmingham AL. CBS let him go for his pains and he eventually ends being employed by ABC.
Freedom of Speech protects minorities and it enabled the civil rights movement to grow.
I don't believe the Leftwaffe are going to give up this winning technique anytime soon. During the cultural revolution in China, logic and rational verbal discourse didn't seem to sway the screaming mob. It will have about the same effect here. The smart ones had an exit plan. And remember how it was ended. Think loud noises and shallow graves.
Side note: if the early opponents of gay marriage could have seen the mission creep of this proposal, to have foreseen a latex gimp on a leash with a rainbow dildo hat at a school board meeting, where the merits of a discussion of lube and buttplugs in a second graders class should be appropriate. Do you think they would have fought harder against it or welcomed it sooner?
I suggest that anyone who is hostile to free speech or finds them "inconvenient" in securing rights try living in a place where this freedom is not secured. Freedom of speech is a fundamental principle of any democracy, republic, or other form of govt in which citizens freely elect their representatives. It is NOT part of centrally-run, authoritarian systems and it never has been. If progressives see a problem with free speech, then a sane person should immediately see a problem with progressives.
Richard Herrnstein, first author of The Bell Curve, was a behavioral psychologist who ran B.F. Skinner's pigeon lab at Harvard. His main contribution to science was the study of choice behavior. His work epitomized the study of behavioral malleability. To characterize him as a strong proponent of genetic explanations of behavior demonstrates a poverty of scholarship.
It has reached the point w,here I am no longer willing to argue with the pRogRessive facists. I simply double down and camp it up like Yannopolis or Kaye. Anyone who knows Socrates knows that all men are basically fools who see only a vague shadow of the truth. Especially moral truth. So the strategy is to Force the little hubristic moralistic evangelist dweebs, that they are producing the wrong effect and advocating the wrong solutions. Show them that logic and reason are their friends, not enemies. It is also necessary to show love and tolerance for all gods creatures, those who are heretics and traitors to western civilization and science and humanity. Tolerance and reason are appropriate for those who are not totally nuts. For those who still believe in objective truth and in evidence pro and con. This is hard for me because I have emotions too. If I am attacked personally then I attack right back. Alas, I am not a patient teacher. I tend to counterattack and declare Total war to the death against the enemies of scientific culture. This is my emotional reaction. Alas, this causes escalation.
Zeno
That said, might there be more than one way to skin a cat? Full disclosure: I am not a lawyer. When confronted by assertions such as this one, I reflect on pertinent examples such as the following:
It's always better when the public mood tends to be accepting of reversing an existing law, but where was the wooing of the public, to pave the way as this viewpoint suggests is necessary, before the NAACP argued and won the Topeka school desegregation case? The Kansas folk who supported segregation were not lobbied to soften resistance. The arguments were made, and the court agreed. Done deal.
I remember no courting of public opinion leading up to legalizing interracial marriage in Loving vs. Virginia, the last hold-out state prohibiting it.
The "drys" and the "wets" were vociferous promoting their respective viewpoints, with the "wets" outnumbering the "drys," yet Prohibition was enacted anyway, and devil take the hindmost.
The military draft was instituted without a public referendum, unless you want to call the legislation autnorizing it a public vote in favor by proxy, through elected representatives.
These are just a few examples supporting my doubts on the propoosition as stated. But I would defer to superior counterarguments, if there are any.
Dr Loury poses interesting questions. I contemplated subscribing to this substack, but the obvious bias makes me resist the urge. Governors are banning books and dictating what history is allowed. These impositions are being done by Conservatives, but the bias is that the problem is Progressives. I’ll come by to listen to the argument the “other side” is making, but I don’t expect to hear a full discussion of a topic.
The problem I see with today's approach to free speech is discerning what is constructive purposeful dialogue vs name-calling ad hominem argument. Columbia Law students are protesting the appearance of Justice Kavanaugh, accusing him of misogyny and White Supremacy, yet as law students they should be engaging him on his judicial views.
The constructive debates over education for minorities, or for treatment of Transgender youth should not be taken up with accusations of racism or transphobia, instead focused on the pros, cons and studies for certain approaches.
Likewise, environmental concerns vs. climate apocalypse- we can have serious discussions about keeping the environment healthy without resorting to calling people "climate deniers".
The mere fact is that Law schools and even Medical schools should be environments where honest and vigorous debate are encouraged, not discouraged. Universities should not be "safe spaces" for the avoidance of psychological trauma due to exposure to differing views and opinions.