Error

Is that a thing? Where did freedom of speech go?

They were accused of being auti-semites for criticizing Isreael, despite the fact that some of the protestors who are part of the movement are Jewish themselves.

People like you are the problem. All this pointless violence and you just want more.

You think the pro Palestinian progressives in this country would shoot them if they had issued a statement criticizing Hamas?

Freedom of speech is strictly to prevent the government from harassing you. It has nothing to do with private entities. This is why you can lose your job for saying racist shit, or be persecuted if you say something your college doesn’t like.

While that is true in the legal sense, there has also been a historical expectation (more so than reality) that universities were also meant to be bastions of free speech. And irrespective of legal protections, it is entirely reasonable for people to still be upset that other entities disregard it. Especially in cases where there are potential lifelong consequences for the people involved.

More the case with public universities than private.

Not like the Ivy League has been known for their acceptance of criticism against their policies that wall off social advancement.

My dad had a fellowship at Harvard that he got kicked out of for not being supportive of Israel. This was decades ago, but that's how deeply rooted this shit is

It's very sad. You can criticize Israel without being hateful.

Wasn't Harvard very antisemitic before world war 2?

This particular instance would have been about 30-40 years ago

Freedom of speech is always at risk, that's why we have to exercise and protect it everyday even when we don't like the speakers.

If they were advocating, hypothetically, for the wiping out of Gaza, I'd have no problem with them being blacklist. I certainly wouldn't knowingly hire someone openly arguing for genocide to unclog my sink, much less for some corporate job.

I don't see what free speech has to do with that. Freedom of speech and association are a thing for all parties.

Companies who blacklist people for signing that letter should be named and shamed/boycotted.

They aren't being attacked for what they said, they are being slandered as terrorists sympathizers by a media and public that has not interest in critical thinking.

If the bakers were just signing letters saying they opposed making cakes for gay people, but not actually refusing, then there'd be no public interest in demanding their names be uncovered.

If they cannot justify their speech to the public, there is probably an issue with what they said.

You mean like when several of the US founding fathers published the Federalist Papers anonymously?

No, I'm pointing out that they had a legitimate reason for staying anonymous. That the concern was economic is irrelevant.

As for the baker, you seem to struggle with the distinction between making a statement about views vs. pointing out their intent to discriminate. In other words: The distinction between anonymously saying they don't want to bake for gay people vs. actually refusing to bake for gay people. One is political speech, however distasteful. The other is actual discrimination.

I get the current fashion of political tribalism dictates that one must defend their side even when it does something awful or ridiculous. However, when you say vile things either on the left or the right you should face the consequences.

The problem comes when someone says something they don't consider vile, but that they know the other side will want to impose consequences on them for. It is wildly unreasonable to think people should just offer themselves up as sacrificial lambs for bigots who can't bear it when students express their political views on a brutally oppressive apartheid regime who has engaged in decades of war crimes and who want to impose punishments for designing to point out the responsibility of said apartheid regime.

This notion of trying to demand that people sacrifice themselves for speaking out about a brutal oppressor because they're not brave enough to risk ruining their lives over it is one that only ever comes from those siding with the oppressors.

You seriously struggle with reading comprehension.

I can say anything I want to gay people and by your logic should be protected.

I have said nothing of the sort. If anything, my comment took pains to draw a line. What I have said is that I don't think anyone has any legitimate claim to demanding the unmasking of someone who merely expresses the political view without taking action on it, subject to the limitations I stated with respect to incitement etc.

It is only when, after they find out about my beliefs (and make a point to try to use my services), the baker should be forced make the cake or decline their business that it becomes distasteful?

I would have found hate speech distasteful before that but it seems that is just me.

I specifically wrote that I considered the mere view alone distasteful in itself. Was that sentence too complicated for you? Let me quote where I did so:

"One is political speech, however distasteful."

Also, and your logic is pretty pretzeled so I am trying to follow it to its conclusion.

It's only "pretzeled" to you because you've failed to understand almost every part of what I wrote:

Because you agree with the speech, because you believe a bunch of Harvard students, who made a public statement and therefore made themselves targets of publicity, are oppressed, then their identities should be protected. But only because you believe their speech is justice. If it was unjust they should be hauled to the town square?

This entire paragraph misrepresents what I wrote so hilariously much it's really quite impressive:

  1. I agree with their speech, that part is right. The "because" is not.

  2. Because the fact that I agree with their speech is irrelevant.

  3. I don't believe they are oppressed. I have never said or implied I think they are oppressed.

  4. I do think the identities of anyone who engages in political speech and who does not cross over into inciting illegal acts should be free to remain anonymous, whether or not I disagree with them.

  5. Whether or not their speech is justified is irrelevant. Case in point: I don't think your speech is justified. I don't think arguing it's right to unmask and put these people at right is reasonable. I find that notion reprehensible. I still think you should be free to remain anonymous, and don't think you should be "hauled to the town square".

Furthermore, I consider it a central measure of whether or not a person is good by whether or not they scream for "consequences" for everyone they disagree with.

I pasted my comment into a couple of online reading-level checkers, and they assessed it as requiring a reading level equivalent to grade 7 and up to grade 10 for one of them. In other words: We both know this is an excuse because you've run out of arguments.

As of 2021, 35 states have passed bills and executive orders designed to discourage boycotts of Israel. Many of them have been passed with broad bipartisan support. Most anti-BDS laws have taken one of two forms: contract-focused laws requiring government contractors to promise that they are not boycotting Israel; and investment-focused laws, mandating public investment funds to avoid entities boycotting Israel.

Harvard is a private institution so the first amendment doesn’t apply.

Stop taking away the freedom of speech of those who believe “freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences” by punishing them with your disagreement!

Then are you suggesting I should be compelled to consume your products or media to avoid punishing you for your bad opinion?

Criticizing Israel has become so difficult.

First you get the anti-Semite thing.

But ignoring that, you get the whataboutism regarding Hamas and other terrorists. “You’re criticizing Israel? What about the terrorists? Do you also criticize them?”

But here’s the thing with that. Israel is the only functioning adult in the conflict. The Palestinians are so ground down and disenfranchised that you cannot even hope for positive change from them. Their culture has degenerated into an entirely tribal jihad rage, and their leadership structure is the product of a pure jungle. Have arms? Have numbers? Have foreign money? Then you can be a leader.

If you want to have a discussion about morals, the only entity you can even talk with is Israel.

So really, by bothering to criticize Israel( you are elevating it to the status of an entity you can dialogue with and hope for better things from.

I don’t want to dehumanize the Palestinians and say they’re like animals you can’t reason with. What I’m saying is that their leadership structure has devolved into warlord factionalism, and that game plays by its own rules, period. They’re not even trying to be a member of the world community anymore. They are also so manipulated by and dependent on sponsors in the region that much of what they do is motivated by outside agendas. And those sponsors driving their proxy wars aren’t even in the room for you to negotiate with or criticize.

I don’t want to dehumanize the Palestinians and say they’re like animals

That is exactly what you did though. They can be human, or they can have no agency. They can't be both.

Nope, it’s not what I did at all. They are human, and they have agency. What they don’t have are options.

I am having a lot of trouble with this article.

  1. Nothing seems to show the name of an author or editor to confirm that they verified this letter is actually from a Harvard Employee. Let alone what type of employee (Faculty, admin, adjunct, etc) which I think matters when considering an open letter and a person's expertise.

  2. This article ends with self promotion of the website: "Lastly, to students, staff and faculty at Harvard and beyond: I have found the articles and statements published on the WSWS to be unparalleled in their political analysis and clarity. I urge you to consider the WSWS’s socialist perspective of uniting Jewish and Arab workers, and workers everywhere, against the capitalist nation-state system that has ultimately wrought this conflict. The following would be an excellent start"

This should not be upvoted and I question whether this violates the rules of this community and should be removed for:

  1. World News requires posts must "Not [be] United States Internal News" which this clearly is as it's about US University and local politics.
  2. I am not sure this counts as a credible source or falls under what is categorized as propaganda given the stated goals of the site. Not to say it's not invalid for discourse, but not up to the standard of what the world news community is creating. I'd be curious to get the mod's take.

"Israel is entirely to blame for this" is a completely different statement from "Israel's actions have led to this tragedy". Because, personally, I put the entire blame on the actual murderers. Geopolitically Israel created the conditions where the terrorists would emerge, but it's still the terrorists fault for commiting terrorism.

It's incredibly disappointing that college students at Harvard are incapable of grasping this nuance. It's also incredibly disappointing that Harvard's administration does not grasp this nuance, and used it as a teachable moment -- and also used it as a moment to tell the far right to fuck off.

Criticizing the Israeli State of Apartheid is welcome.

“the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,”

A patently false statement, loaded with implications.

Netanyahu and his political allies assassinated Israeli pm Rabin and stalled out the nearly completed peace talks in the mid 90s. Then they funded Hamas to oppose the secular organization in Palestine named Fatah, the other that had gotten the closest to peace when negotiating with Rabin.

Right wing zionists in Israel literally created the background setting for shit like this to happen. It’s entirely accurate. You just have been primed to associate criticism with bigotry.

It’s been demonstrated that Netanyahu has actively sabotaged peace over decades because it benefits him politically for there to be conflict.

That's ironic since this conflict is tanking him politically for it happening in the first place. But even if your statement is true, that is does not change that is is false to state “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence."

Nobody said it was a smart strategy, just that it was his strategy

To a racist exterminationist, picking your main enemy to represent your "other" as rabid religious fundamentalist terrorists is a pretty solid choice.

Problem is that the security security security rhetoric worked a little too well as a dog whistle and now Israelis are turning on him because the attack he has wanted to provoke all along turned out to look more contradictory to security than like an opportunity to rally around the flag.

It'd be like if all those conspiracy theories about Roosevelt letting Pearl Harbor happen were actually more or less true.

I'm not saying that. I'm just saying it's ironic. I don't understand how folks are reading into this as being a statement of for or against any position. It's just pointing out that there is going to be reckoning for this attack (which a lot of new sources have alluded to from interviews with other officials). So it is ironic that a guy who allegedly sabotaged peace to hang onto power will end up having it be his downfall to lose power. That is ironic. I am not saying it is either good or bad, or justifiable or unjustifiable. Just ironic.

He wanted conflict, not an attack on home soil.

That doesn't make it unironic.

Too bad things like war crimes often go without consequences.

It sounds like some of the consequences of free speech is violence in this case.

What was in the letter that was vile enough to be attacked?

If signing it means being physically attacked, regardless of what was written, that is an assault on freedom of speech.

The article clearly states threats of violence to the PSC, the student group who penned the initial letter:

“This has created an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship on campus. The PSC had to “postpone a solidarity vigil acknowledging all civilian victims” following “credible death threats,” according to a PSC statement to the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper.”

“The far-right Accuracy in Media (AIM) group has swiftly descended onto the scene, driving around Harvard Square with a billboard truck showing the names and photos of students supposedly associated with the PSC statement under the header “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.” Despite its nominal dedication to “accuracy,” the truck has reportedly included photos of students who are no longer at Harvard, students no longer affiliated with the organizations, and Jewish students, all lumped together as anti-Semites.”

Your comment kind of proves the point of the article. Being critical of the Israeli government does not make you an antisemite or a supporter of terror. Of course I believe a Jewish person has the right to advocate for Israel without being punished in any way. Why on Earth would I feel differently? I’m not really sure what you’re asking about Hamas, but yeah, they are fucked up and their actions were unconscionable.

Acknowledging the fact that Israel has committed war crimes in the Gaza Strip which has led to a state of chaos that has contributed to the radicalization of Hamas does not make you a sympathizer of the terrible acts of terror that took place earlier this week.

My very uneducated take here is that there are no “good guys” in this conflict, only the loss of many innocent lives.

Try again, and look for the parts about death threats?

This isn’t being objected to on the grounds of freedom of speech purism. So your tired little catchphrase isn’t even applicable here. No, the question is what should the consequences actually be for this speech? Jesus. Get it right.

Indeed, if it is not objectionable, there should be no punishment, in which case if they could trust this there would be no issue with them signing their names to their statement.

You are right, they likely do not sign their names because they fear retribution. In other words: They do not trust that there will be no punishment. The demands to unmask them show that this risk is real. It does not follow from this that this is something that warrants punishment.

See how that works: Someone can believe - whether or not they are right - that there is nothing in it warranting punishment, and at the same time believe that there will be punishment anyway.

That is a logically consistent position to hold, and sufficient to warrant not disclosing their names, and so it is not valid to try to infer from this that they belief that they've done something wrong, nor is it reasonable to expect everyone who believes in a cause to consider it so important to them personally that they are willing to risk their future careers over it.

Unless you yourself have taken greater risks in the name of this cause, you have no basis for demanding of them risks you are unwilling to take yourself.

I see, if it is speech you agree with and believe that there should be no punishment, then it is find to be anonymous. Is the reverse true, if this was an anti-Arab hate group, would you call for such protection? I doubt it. You would call for them to be unmasked and punished.

How nice of you to decide you know my views. Especially when you get it so offensively wrong.

If someone made a statement of the same content as they did, with the groups reversed, no, I sure as hell would not argue for them to be unmasked, nor would I argue for them to be punished, and I would think it was vile and a sign of deeply nasty authoritarian beliefs to do so, because the ability to debate without someone taking actions that are clearly intended to intimidate and ruin someone's life over disagreeing with me is something that is fundamentally incompatible with all my beliefs.

Put another way: I find the views you are expressing here reprehensible, because I consider standing up for the right of specifically those you disagree with to be a core and essential factor in whether or not someone is a good person and someone who believes in freedom and democracy. But I have no desire to see you punished for them, because I do fully believe you have the right to them, and the right to express them, without worrying about consequences.

Now, had you actually argued for violence or other illegal actions against specific people in a way reasonable to consider incitement, or intended to deprive others of that same freedom, then I would want to see you unmasked and punished for that.

To me, this desire to punish and to impose consequences is at its core a deeply authoritarian, anti-democratic belief.

In the end, I know where your disingenuous argument comes from. You are a rules for thee and not for me kind of person.

I take offense at that. Are you going to give us your full real identity, in accordance with your own principles, because someone takes offence at what you have said? I certainly would not demand it, because I find the notion of demanding to unmask someone offensive, but you yourself have argued that people should stand up for what they say.

LOL you think your logic is so watertight that disagreeing with you can only be bad faith or trolling. I’ll explain this again slowly.

We can allow that it’s fair to have consequences but also ask whether the consequences are appropriate and proportional. I said the question is what should the consequences be. The consequences right now are censure and sanction: economic retribution, as you put it. That’s allowed under the law and all, but totally chilling for a learning institution, because there is a legitimate humanitarian case to be made for Palestinian freedom.

AND SO:

  1. There are negative consequences for supporting Palestinians.

  2. There should not be negative consequences for supporting Palestinians.

  3. Not out of free speech absolutism, but because Palestinian support is not tantamount to racist terrorism.

People are getting Nazi-level consequences for saying that an organized military shouldn’t be attacking a civilian town.

So let’s turn to another question: can you follow this or can’t you? It’s not looking good…

Begone troll.

I didn't want you to get the last word or anything 😉

Anonymous speech is valid speech. There is no requirement for what you say, moral or ethical.

The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the right to anonymous free speech is protected by the First Amendment. A frequently cited 1995 Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission reads:

Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.

https://www.eff.org/issues/anonymity

How exactly do you think someone can be anonymous to the government if they're not anonymous to the public?

We're not talking about doxxing. Don't change the subject.

How exactly do you think someone can be anonymous to the government if they’re not anonymous to the public?

You're still trying to change the subject and not answering the question.

Actually, doxing is frequently illegal as it’s usually done for the purpose of harassment, intimidation and terrorism*- as is the reason these idiots want the names of students.

Or do you think a lynchmob is an appropriate consequence?

*see for example doxing election workers being doxed by far right terrorists in the US.

You don’t get it do you?

Doxing is itself is harassment… when the purpose of the doxing is to harass, or intimidate.

Like how unlocking a door is not a crime, but unlocking a door to go inside and loot the place is- “breaking”, in the “breaking and entry”. Saying “Yeah but I don’t mean to go in and steal” isn’t going to fly when your friend goes on and loots the place instead.

Or another example- standing on the street corner and shouting “cop!” When a cop passed by is not a crime. But it becomes a crime when your doing it because your friends are around the corner selling illicit drugs.

Similarly, you have to be a particularly ignorant sort to argue that the reason people want these students doxed is not domestic terrorism. As defined by the FBI:

domestic or international, as the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a Government or civilian population in furtherance of political or social objectives.

In short, either you’re pretty freaking ignorant (not realizing why people want them doxed), arguing in bad faith (so you or your friends can terrorise them) or so wrapped up in your own beliefs that you can’t possibly fathom people disagree with you. None of which is conducive to working in a group environment, which, is why I would not hire you.

So, ya willing to dox yourself? You know. Put your money where your mouth is?

I think not.

Which leads to the final point: you are denying dumbass kids what you yourself enjoy,

Ad hominem. Always a sign of good faith arguements.

lol now take on Neo Nazis and note how your opinion suddenly shifts