House Committee: Hearing on Free Speech - IDW Member, Bret Weinstein, Testifies

RealityForAll said:

ml1 said:
if Congress was really concerned about free speech, they'd hold hearings on the effect of the POTUS calling journalists "enemies of the state."

 That is the spirit.  Finally, you are acknowledging that free speech issues exist. Albeit, in the form of a what-aboutism.  

Pointing out selective outrage is not the same as whataboutism. 

RealityForAll said:

ml1 said:
if Congress was really concerned about free speech, they'd hold hearings on the effect of the POTUS calling journalists "enemies of the state."

 That is the spirit.  Finally, you are acknowledging that free speech issues exist. Albeit, in the form of a what-aboutism.  

 it's hardly what-aboutism.   It's prioritizing.  IMHO, the president trying to shut down legitimate criticism is far more damaging to the country than what happened to Weinstein.

It's like the old parable in the New Testament.  Congress is concerning themselves with a speck in the eye of universities while the government itself has a log stuck in their own eye.

RealityForAll said:

The apparent motive behind such a rule is to promote civil discourse.

A rule that promotes civil discourse, you say?   

PEN America, Anthony Fisher and Norman_Bates all shed some light on this.

Duplicate.

RealityForAll said:

LOST said:
I haven't read the entire thread so if I missed this I apologize.
It's great to see that Congress has an interest in Freedom of Speech but have they ever apologized for HUAC or the McCarthy hearings?
More recently will they look into Leader McConnell's telling Sen. Warren, basically "Sit down and shut up"?

Another what-aboutism!!!! 
PS  Senator Warren violated Senate rules AFAIK.  See https://www.npr.org/2017/02/08/514086829/a-senate-rule-silenced-elizabeth-warren-is-that-rule-so-bad  My understanding is that Senate rule 19 prohibits questioning another Senator's motives.  The apparent motive behind such a rule is to promote civil discourse.

 It still infringes upon speech.

Would you be OK with a similar rule on College campuses prohibiting any faculty member or guest speaker from questioning another's motives. Additionally Warren wasn't questioning the motives of another Senator, as I recall, she was questioning the qualifications of a former Senator for a cabinet position.

LOST said:

RealityForAll said:

LOST said:
I haven't read the entire thread so if I missed this I apologize.
It's great to see that Congress has an interest in Freedom of Speech but have they ever apologized for HUAC or the McCarthy hearings?
More recently will they look into Leader McConnell's telling Sen. Warren, basically "Sit down and shut up"?

Another what-aboutism!!!! 
PS  Senator Warren violated Senate rules AFAIK.  See https://www.npr.org/2017/02/08/514086829/a-senate-rule-silenced-elizabeth-warren-is-that-rule-so-bad  My understanding is that Senate rule 19 prohibits questioning another Senator's motives.  The apparent motive behind such a rule is to promote civil discourse.

 It still infringes upon speech.
Would you be OK with a similar rule on College campuses prohibiting any faculty member or guest speaker from questioning another's motives. Additionally Warren wasn't questioning the motives of another Senator, as I recall, she was questioning the qualifications of a former Senator for a cabinet position.

 Senate makes its own rules and it appears to have a good purpose, promoting civil discourse.

RealityForAll said:

 Senate makes its own rules and it appears to have a good purpose, promoting civil discourse.

 Schools have their own rules to, for better and worse.

RealityForAll said:

PVW said:
Unless Jeff Sessions or Donald Trump is going to be called to account for their attacks on freedom of speech, this doesn't seem like a good faith hearing.

 I believe your post is a definitional example of "whataboutism".

You're right. As written, this is floppy whataboutism. I'll sharpen the point.

Speech has power. If it didn't, it wouldn't matter, and we wouldn't be having these discussions. And a trend we've seen over the last several decades is a pushback against the kind of speech used to police and suppress the full diversity of voices in our society. Racist and sexist jokes aren't just harmless fun, they're tools to keep people silent and invisible. And those who bemoan this pushback and label it "political correctness" aren't defenders of free speech, they're lamenting the loss of their power to silence and marginalize.

And Donald Trump rode in to office as tribune of these cultural reactionaries. "Just kiss. I don’t even wait." Why should he wait -  what does it matter what she says, or even if she says anything at all? The only speech that matters is his, after all. Anything else is "political correctness."

And once in office he pursued this view with vigor. Amongst his first act was to declare a travel ban targeted against Muslims. Why even risk hearing them, when you can just keep them out of the country in the first place? 

And it's not just Muslims he targets, of course. He declares he has the power to open or close any investigation, while musing about jailing political opponents. He publicly attacks media outlets and private businesses he dislikes. His justice department prosecutes people for laughing. And on and on.

Now if I left it at that, this would still be whataboutism, so let's get to the point here. Trump is enabled in all this by Congressional Republicans -- the very same who are holding this hearing on free speech. If they so wished, they could exercise their power to block or mitigate the Trump administration's assaults, but they choose not to. To hold hearings on "free speech" while supporting Trump's assaults on the same is deeply cynical and dishonest.

ml1 said:
if Congress was really concerned about free speech, they'd hold hearings on the effect of the POTUS calling journalists "enemies of the state."

They'd be investigating Fox News for providing hundreds of millions of dollars of "in kind" contributions to the Republican party over the past 20 years..

PVW said
Speech has power. If it didn't, it wouldn't matter, and we wouldn't be having these discussions. And a trend we've seen over the last several decades is a pushback against the kind of speech used to police and suppress the full diversity of voices in our society. Racist and sexist jokes aren't just harmless fun, they're tools to keep people silent and invisible. And those who bemoan this pushback and label it "political correctness" aren't defenders of free speech, they're lamenting the loss of their power to silence and marginalize.

Your entire post is Whataboutism if I understand the concept.  

The quoted paragraph is also sophomoric, and incorrect to the point of dangerous.  Speech does not silence anyone.   The answer to speech you don't like is more speech.  

In the words of Dave Chappelle "that's a brittle spirit". 

drummerboy said:

ml1 said:
if Congress was really concerned about free speech, they'd hold hearings on the effect of the POTUS calling journalists "enemies of the state."

They'd be investigating Fox News for providing hundreds of millions of dollars of "in kind" contributions to the Republican party over the past 20 years..

 Has he done anything to censor any publication?  Has anyone cracked down on political enemies like Obama's IRS?

terp said:

PVW said
Speech has power. If it didn't, it wouldn't matter, and we wouldn't be having these discussions. And a trend we've seen over the last several decades is a pushback against the kind of speech used to police and suppress the full diversity of voices in our society. Racist and sexist jokes aren't just harmless fun, they're tools to keep people silent and invisible. And those who bemoan this pushback and label it "political correctness" aren't defenders of free speech, they're lamenting the loss of their power to silence and marginalize.

Your entire post is Whataboutism if I understand the concept.  
The quoted paragraph is also sophomoric, and incorrect to the point of dangerous.  Speech does not silence anyone.   The answer to speech you don't like is more speech.  

In the words of Dave Chappelle "that's a brittle spirit". 

Trump's assaults aren't "what about," they are examples of the GOP having the power to act on an issue they claim to care about, but that they instead actually encourage and support. They can't credibly claim to care about free speech over a context they have little control (college campuses) if they refuse to act in a context where they have a great deal of agency.

As for your second point, you and I have long differed in our views on how power works in our society.

PVW said:
Trump's assaults aren't "what about," they are examples of the GOP having the power to act on an issue they claim to care about, but that they instead actually encourage and support. They can't credibly claim to care about free speech over a context they have little control (college campuses) if they refuse to act in a context where they have a great deal of agency.
As for your second point, you and I have long differed in our views on how power works in our society.

 I have no idea what you are talking about.  We went from a fired professor telling his story (which was then painted as irrelevant)  to "What about Trump?"  If that isn't Whataboutism, then what is?

terp said:

 Has he done anything to censor any publication?  Has anyone cracked down on political enemies like Obama's IRS?

 He tried to block the AT&T/Time Warner merger as an attack against CNN. 

terp said:

Has anyone cracked down on political enemies like Obama's IRS?

However one chooses to describe it, the keyword-flagging program dated to 2004. The answer is, yes, Bush’s IRS.

DaveSchmidt said:

terp said:

Has anyone cracked down on political enemies like Obama's IRS?

However one chooses to describe it, the keyword-flagging program dated to 2004. The answer is, yes, Bush’s IRS.

 Anyone who thinks the Obama IRS cracked down on political enemies is woefully uninformed.

terp said:

 I have no idea what you are talking about.  We went from a fired professor telling his story (which was then painted as irrelevant)  to "What about Trump?"  If that isn't Whataboutism, then what is?

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform decided to have a hearing on free speech, and decided that the appropriate target for such a hearing was free speech on campus. If the GOP decides they want to talk about free speech but NOT talk about Trump, then I'd suggest it is they  who are guilty of whataboutism.

Can't find it now, but in one of the much earlier incarnations of this thread, I said I thought colleges actually are failing here. College is precisely where messy, complicated issues like free speech ought to be engaged and debated, and the fact that so many are allowing themselves to just become another front in the political culture wars is disappointing and huge missed opportunity. If the GOP was talking about campus free speech AND Trump, I'd be more inclined to listen.

But they're not. They see what Trump is doing and either ignore or outright support it, and then they say "hey, whatabout campus speech! Look, we're holding a hearing!"

     I sincerely invite people to read the transcript of the thoughtful testimony of Shaun Harper before the House Committee on Oversight.  For those not in the field, Shaun is one of the preeminent voices in higher education on matters of social justice and has founded centers for the study of race and equity at both the U of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California. In his testimony, Shaun understandably centers on the inter-sectionality of campus racial dynamics and speech since that is his focus of study.  However, there are broader conclusions to be drawn about the magnitude and nature of the issue as well as his recommendations for social justice education.  I find it especially telling that Shaun wrote/said the following: 

     "I wholeheartedly agree that more speech, not less, advances the democratic purposes of American higher education. Sending millions of college educated citizens into the workforce every year with little experience talking with people who politically disagree with them is a serious failure of our nation’s postsecondary institutions.

     Shaun's recommendations are for more speech in every area, especially with respect to educating our nation's college students on matters of racial dynamics.  While he certainly recognizes the impact of racism on students, he views more speech and education, not the suppression of speech, as the remedy to racism as well as other issues.

https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Shaun-Harper-Congressional-Testimony-Final.pdf

https://news.usc.edu/114718/diversity-expert-shaun-harper-to-lead-new-usc-center-on-race-and-equity/

In case not everyone accepts your invitation, here’s another excerpt from Harper.

Studies from the USC Race and Equity Center consistently confirm that unless students are required to take ethnic studies or other racially-focused courses, they could easily matriculate through four or more years of college without ever engaging in a meaningful conversation about race. This largely applies to learning about gender and sexual orientation as well. This, not overblown concerns about assaults on free speech, must be addressed on campuses. According to the U.S. Department of Education, our country has 4,724 degree-granting postsecondary institutions. Shouting down and rescinding invitations from Milo Yiannopoulos, Ann Coulter, Ben Shapiro, and other highly compensated conservative speakers is an issue plaguing only a tiny fraction of these institutions. Avoidance of deep learning about race and other dimensions of diversity, equity, and inclusion is the bigger, much more pervasive problem that ignites campus conflict. In my expert opinion, this is for the campuses, not for the United States Congress, to address.

College student activists are often accused of attempting to suppress their professors’ speech. In 2016, there were 1,430,390 instructional faculty members at degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the U.S.7 Reports of attempted speech suppression are relatively low and sporadic, not widespread. Even if 10,000 professors (a hypothetically high number) experienced aggressive encounters with student activists and other so-called speech suppressors on their campuses, that would be just 0.7% of postsecondary faculty members across the country. This seems like such a low number to warrant so much national conversation about professors’ freedom of speech supposedly being under attack by our students.

what a distortion we've seen here with regard to the concept of whataboutism.  It is generally meant to refer to someone who is deflecting from their own transgressions by pointing out those of others.  It's not meant to refer to what's being done here with regard to Congress -- which is accusing them of willfully ignoring worse free speech transgressions in their own party to focus on something less impactful in the outside world.

It wouldn't be whataboutism for instance to take a corporation to task for investigating the theft of office supplies while refusing to investigate allegations of embezzlement.

Norman_Bates said:

 I sincerely invite people to read the transcript of the thoughtful testimony of Shaun Harper before the House Committee on Oversight.  

I had earlier skimmed the full video of that House Oversight subcommittee hearing to check out the context of Weinstein’s comments. I just went back to view some of the exchanges between subcommittee members and Harper. I’ll expand your invitation and encourage others to do the same.

Why was the NYT so slow to report the Evergreen State Story (which was reported by the WSJ on May 30, 2017 - albeit in an opinion piece from the victim, Bret Weinstein).  The Evergreen State College ("TESC") May 2017 situation was apparently broken by USAToday on May 30, 2017.   See http://college.usatoday.com/2017/05/30/protests-erupt-over-racism-at-evergreen-state-college/

 First mention of the Evergreen State story by the NYT was an opinion piece by Bari Weiss on June 1, 2017.  Below is the timeline for NYT reporting on this incident:

What is unusual about the timeline is that the first mention of the Evergreen situation is in the form of Bari Weiss and Frank Bruni opinion pieces on June 1st and June 3rd.  WSJ reported contemporaneously on the incident as news back on May 22, 2017.  The first news report (not opinion) at the NYT was the Jacqueline Littleton article of June 11th.  

Conclusion:  NYT reporters/news editors had difficulty with the Evergreen State incidents because it went against their narrative.  Thus, no contemporaneous reporting.  

PS This appears to be an instance where the NYT reporting was based on the following motto:  "All the news fitted to print".

PPS  Previously I inadvertently cited the WSJ as the first to break the May 2017 TESC news.  However, that was an error.  It appears that USAToday news article was instead the first to break the news on May 30, 2017.  Additionally, WSJ take on the situation was good in that it was first person reporting by Bret Weinstein on May 30, 2017 but bad in that it was also an opinion piece.

RealityForAll said:

Why was the NYT so slow to report the Evergreen State Story (which was reported by the WSJ on May 22, 2017).  Instead, the WSJ broke the news.  See https://www.wsj.com/articles/rough-social-justice-at-evergreen-state-1527029193  

 That Journal article is from May 22, 2018, not 2017.

DaveSchmidt said:

RealityForAll said:

Why was the NYT so slow to report the Evergreen State Story (which was reported by the WSJ on May 22, 2017).  Instead, the WSJ broke the news.  See https://www.wsj.com/articles/rough-social-justice-at-evergreen-state-1527029193  

 That Journal article is from May 22, 2018, not 2017.

 I got it mixed up with the WSJ reporting on the situation on May 30, 2017.  Thanks for pointing that out.  I will update my posting to reflect this error.

RealityForAll said:

I got it mixed up with the WSJ reporting on the situation on May 30, 2017.  Thanks for pointing that out.  I will update my posting to reflect this error.

You’re welcome.

To recap: USA Today and WSJ on May 30, six days after the protest; NYT two days later.

Also, for the record, the Jacqueline Littleton piece was opinion, too.

DaveSchmidt said:

RealityForAll said:

I got it mixed up with the WSJ reporting on the situation on May 30, 2017.  Thanks for pointing that out.  I will update my posting to reflect this error.

You’re welcome.
To recap: USA Today and WSJ on May 30, six days after the protest; NYT two days later.
Also, for the record, the Jacqueline Littleton piece was opinion, too.

 USA Today piece was a news piece.  Which means that the first news piece by the NYT was on June 16th (more than two weeks after the USA Today piece).  Yes, WSJ printed on May 30th an article by Bret Weinstein which was a first person narrative of the TESC May  2017 incidents.  

Why can't NYT report the news?  Instead of cherrypicking news for POVs that support their narrative.

if the NYT was going to bury that story they would not have printed anything about it.  At this point there's actually a pretty strong argument that the Evergreen story has received far more ongoing coverage than it warrants.

RealityForAll said:
 USA Today piece was a news piece.  Which means that the first news piece by the NYT was on June 16th (more than two weeks after the USA Today piece).  Yes, WSJ printed on May 30th an article by Bret Weinstein which was a first person narrative of the TESC May  2017 incidents.  

Why can't NYT report the news?  Instead of cherrypicking news for POVs that support their narrative.

USA Today published a blog item written by a college student stringer who relied on a local newspaper story, press releases and tweets. The Times sent a staff writer to Olympia, Wash., to do firsthand reporting.

Duplicate.

Ditto.