The aggregate demands of the administration are confusing and contradictory. They seem to be simultaneously asking for:
- an end to diversity initiatives
- a new diversity initiative for diverse points of view
- a new policy of not admitting international students with certain points of view
- ending speech-control policies
- auditing the speech of certain departments and programs
- ending discipline of students who violate policies related to inclusion
- disciplining particular students who violated policies related to inclusion
It is easier to understand their thinking when you combine each pair of demands: what they want is reversals, they've just split each into two steps because they think that will be more palatable. It makes it easier to sell to their own base certainly, because they can concentrate on whichever half has the most emotive effect in any given speech, and easier for their base to parrot: they just repeat the half they want and don't need to think about the other.
The end to current diversity policies and the start of others combined is a demand for u-turn: stop allowing the things we don't like, start allowing the things you were stopping.
Same for speech: stop auditing the speech we want to say, start auditing the speech you were previously allowing.
And so on.
In the minds of the administration it makes sense, because they think of each item separately where there is conflict and together where there is not. Such cognitive dissonance seems to be their natural state of mind, the seem to seek it.
Much like their cries of “but what about tolerance?!”¹ when you mention punching nazis. They want the complete about-turn: LBTQ out, racism/sexism/phobias in. You are supposed to tolerate what they want you to tolerate, and little or nothing else.
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[1] My answer there has often become “you didn't want tolerance, you specifically voted against continued tolerance, what you voted for won, intolerance is your democratically chosen desire, who am I to deny the will of your people?”.
The quotes seem to be from the famous book "1984" by George Orwell. We had it in English literature class in high school.
There are some other famous quotes from that book or one of his other famous books, "Animal Farm".
Writing from memory and googling, so may be wrong:
"Some people are more equal than others."
The society that Winston finds himself in puts forth the slogan, "War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength." The meaning of this phrase is to force confusion upon the members of the Party. It is a form of propaganda, or misleading information typically given by a political party.
According to the article, the original version with "2 + 2 = 5" suggests complete submission to the oppressive regime, with the protagonist's mind being irreversibly altered.
Technically part of the Ministry of Love, Room 101 is the most feared place in all of Oceania and Winston learns far too well that it is here that the …
What is the final message of 1984? … a warning about the dangers of totalitarianism and the ability of a repressive regime to manipulate and control individuals to the point where they betray ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm
Animal Farm is even more creepy than 1984, going by my memory, which may be wrong, since it is quite some years since I read both those books.
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Could you please cite some examples? This reads like a bunch of strawmen set up by someone aggrieved by trans rights and racial equality.
The first Harvard one that comes to mind is Carole Hooven, an enocrinologist who was pilloried for speaking obvious truths:
https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2024/02/15/carole-hooven-wh...
I think a clearly ideological actor leaving by choice after being ostracized for representing blatantly false and unscientific ideological claims is good, actually, and that providing this as an example is shifting your goalposts. For context, Carole Hooven is a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing "think-tank," and an associate of notable transphobe Stephen Pinker. The personal costs of her self-created ostracization seem minimal (perhaps negative).
The statements that she made hinge on a supposed "strict sex binary," which relies upon forced ignorance and denial of the existence of intersex people. This is a weaponized claim used to gird the foundations of an ideology which has successfully sought to engage in human rights abuses, initially directed by this administration at denying children social acceptance and access to life-saving medical care as well as directly impugning the moral character of US military service members while attacking their access to life-saving medical care and discharging them from service. Simultaneously, Harvard has come under attack from the administration on a purely ideological and fascist basis. It seems like her critics were right to view her as a threat to science, human dignity, and the institution they mutually-represented.
Sex is binary - for all species that reproduce sexually, including humans - because there is no intermediate gamete between sperm and egg.
What you're referring to with "intersex" is actually a set of disorders of sex development which affect each sex differently. For example, consider 5-alpha reductase deficiency: a mutation in the gene that encodes the enzyme for converting testosterone to dihydrotestosterone, causing loss of enzymatic activity, may be present in anyone of either sex, but will only impair male sexual development.
None of this is controversial amongst biologists. It's fundamental to understanding sexual reproduction.
The dramatic moral harms of this Engineer's-Disease-based reasoning on public policy are already visible and are only expected to dramatically accelerate for the foreseeable future. There's no point in engaging an off-topic and inflammatory line of discourse that attempts to paper over this undeniable reality with smug appeals to authority.
Hold on—we're being a bit taxonomically lazy here, aren't we? You're applying a species-level classification (based on gametes) too rigidly to individual-level variation. If you look at actual developmental outcomes, there's a non-trivial set of cases that don’t map neatly onto a system of just two categories (which is not a lot of categories). Calling all of those 'disorders' assumes the categories are already correct, rather than testing whether they fit what we actually observe.
Ps. The Overton window is such an interesting concept; Imagine arguing our case before the head Eunuch of the Ottoman Court in the 16th century or so.
> None of this is controversial amongst biologists. It's fundamental to understanding sexual reproduction.
True, but nor is it generally controversial amongst the un-indoctronated that sexual reproduction and gender identity are NOT (as claimed a couple of posts above) orthogonal concepts. I don't know about you, but while my biology and mental identity happen to nicely match up, I consider myself to be more than my testicles and can accept that others don't share my cis status.
>None of this is controversial among biologists
Nope, but it is among people who can't tolerate different kind of people.
Wanna guess which books the Nazi's burned first? Yep the ones about transgender research from the Institute for Sexual Research. I'm sure they acted in good faith like they usually did.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
idk if there's much I can do here. Carole is a respected scientist. So is Steven. Carole is a fellow of this institute as a result of having to find new patrons because of her cancellation, not the other way around. Your understanding of the situation re sex and gender is completely incorrect.
>idk if there's much I can do here.
Good? You made a claim and had one point disproven because there's a difference between voluntarily leaving an institution and being kidnapped by the federal government.
No one really asked about your opinions otherwise. We're just establishing 2 very obvious lines in the sand.
You could attempt to provide citation for your initial claims. Carole Hooven does not meet the criteria, providing her is only suggestive of a disingenuous ideological motivation.
Here's a database of cancellations, searching for the word "fired": https://www.thecollegefix.com/cancel-culture-database/?gv_se...
Obviously other words like "terminated" may be appropriate too. Of course, most situations like this don't come to firing--like with Carole, the bureaucracy simply takes away everything you love and makes it clear you will never advance. It's much simpler when people "choose" to leave.
You should probably dig through your right-wing propaganda outlet's database to support your position so you can provide cites to be responded to. I'm certainly not going to read through a hundred reports like "Antifa demands [person] be fired" and "Professor says he was fired for using N-word" to make your argument for you.
Absent providing evidence of your claims, it seems reasonable to conclude that your position is unsupportable.
So your position is -
- Egalitarianism is newspeak/doublethink
- McCarthyism is was an end to egalitarianism, until the 'previous regime' (which I take to mean a regime since 1959, whatever 'regime' that means).
- Stating some people are lesser gets you fired from empirical institutions.
In short, people being equal is soviet style communism, the old regime which included Regan and Nixon is over, and only now you can say what you want because something changed?
This here is a fantastic example of newspeak, doublethink. Thank you for that
I am strongly reminded of my own governments (Sweden) attempts to introduce diversity programs into the school system, only to have each attempt ending in the court system that then finds the programs as discriminatory. In a few examples where they then went and tried to circumvent the anti-discriminatory laws, those attempts tend to favor the wrong demographic and get canceled shortly after. The very concept of favoring or hindering one demographic over an other in terms of grades or admissions are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, which is the basis for those laws. It is somewhat understandable why politicians tries to work around laws that protect human rights, but the rulings of the courts are not surprising in the least. For now it seems that most those initiatives has died off with fewer attempts to challenge the courts on this issue.
Strong fundamental laws such as the European Convention on Human Rights exist for a good reason. It prevents political winds from undermining the very pillars that society is built on. It also forces those that want to create exceptions to design their ideas in general form, which has some nice side effects of illuminating contradictions and false premises. If political demonstration on university grounds are disrupting education, then it doesn't matter what political message they are shouting. Either you allow it all, or none of it. If you want to give women higher admission credits in programs where they are a minority, you got to give men higher admission credits in programs where they are a minority. If the consequences of such general rules are not fitting the political winds then the default is return back to the foundation that is human rights.
Sadly America was founded on principles that too 200 years to try and undo. And given the last year alone, they are still stripping rights as we speak. I don't know which fork we turned on that made us so reliable on racism and sexism to function and band together as a country that much of the EU seems to have navigated better. Maybe reconstruction should have had an actual Nuremburg trial instead of "forgiveness" (aka pushing the can down the street until someone could assassinate the one trying to compromise).
the main thing is that it's acceptable, meritorious even, to resent the privileged white male. But a jewish white male, that's racist. Also most white males in the ivies are jewish - the so-called privileged (non-jewish) white male is in fact underrepresented now vs. the general population.
Hello, 55 day old account that's definitely not a troll
Authoritarian governments are arbitrary governments, all decisions are made arbitrarily. Consistency is unnecessary. That's the trouble with choosing power as a guiding principle over reason or consent.
Consistency is undesirable, because if everyone is breaking a law, you apply the hammer of justice only if they aren't a friend.
It's one of the best ways to look good to certain people as well,because you can claim to be just following the law.
This comment and the parent’s are the best retorts I’ve seen yet to the “these people are just stupid” idea we hear all the time. These “rules” are not calculated and brilliant, and that’s the point. They’re controlling at any angle they want.
No, it's still stupid. High corruption leads to weaker economic performance (eg compare red vs blue states). Nepotism looks like winning right until it sinks your company.
> No, it's still stupid.
It doesn't serve the goals you think it should, that's not necessarily stupid.
> High corruption leads to weaker economic performance (eg compare red vs blue states).
Yes, but the people who are pursuing corruption don't care about maximizing aggregate economic performance, they care about maximizing their power over others, which is isn't the same as "economic performance" and, to the extent that it related to economic performance, doesn't have any necessary relation to a broad aggregate, its more concerned with very specific aspects of relative distribution.
> It doesn't serve the goals you think it should
I maen, what are their goals? To make more money? Yes, stupid to crash the economy just to insider trade. Power and influence? Yes, it's stupid to overextend too fast. Ask 99% of regines from human history (Rome, Soviet Union, Great Britian). Ideaological warfare? Yes, it's stupid to outright declare constitutional war on day 9x out of 1400.
What are their goals?
> the people who are pursuing corruption don't care about maximizing aggregate economic performance, they care about maximizing their power over others, which is isn't the same as "economic performance"
well they should have. Again, Bread and circuses. Mess with people's money and they get neither.
Again, stupid move. This could have been an easy, silent, calculated takeover in the course of two years. Instead they just swung a hammer at the house and are frustrated that people are yelling at them.
Who is "others"? Who is "aggregate"? You're being vague because your idea doesn't make any sense.
Let's be clear:
1) Trump very clearly - very obviously - cares a lot about broad US economic performance compared to China.
2) This is at odds with his desire for unlimited power within the US, because corruption and oppression doesn't do very well economically.
That's why it's stupid - it doesn't serve its own goals. One of those two has to give.
He and his voters don't understand "Woke" is great for the modern economy. You want everyone working at their absolute full potential. Slaves don't invent chips, corruption drives away business investment, etc. It's very simple to understand if you're not a racist, but the South has been stuck on this point for generations.
Right, this is why fascist governments tend to fail. In the meantime, though, normal folks will be hurt.
And in the meantime, the people in power in these fascist governments tend to make out like (literal) bandits.
This is fine if it ends by being subjected to that convenient device they developed in France somewhere in the 1800s.
Very unlikely in the first place, but second, that way lies far worse chaos.
Similarly, when Julius Caesar turned the republic into an empire, and was subsequently assassinated: it did not mean the empire reverted back to being a republic - rather that centuries of increasingly despotic emperors lay ahead.
Agree that it's unlikely, but while knives in the back still led to centuries of imperialism, the guillotine cleanly ended absolutist monarchy in France once, and then some ships and exile ended the second time, and it generally stayed dead afterwards.
Note that modern France is the Fifth Republic so that's a whole lot of turmoil given how relatively recently they killed their last king.
It's iterative republic development. Release a republic, test it in the field, make improvements. Makes sense to me.
:D I don't know why, but something about this made me giggle.
Nazis again? We did Nazis remember? End of the Third Republic, all of that? Everybody agreed Nazis were a bad idea, why the fuck are there more Nazis?
> Note that modern France is the Fifth Republic so that's a whole lot of turmoil given how relatively recently they killed their last king.
Their last king wasn't killed by the French, but died in exile in England, and was one of three (or four) kings (Louis XVIII, Charles X, (arguably Henry V), and Louis Phillippe, who reigned between the First Empire (and consequently also after the First Republic) and the Second Republic (and consequently also before the Second Empire.)
Their last monarch was even later, and also wasn't killed by the French, but died in exile in England. The series of governments after the last monarch includes only the Third through Fifth Republics (and, depending on how you look at it, the Vichy regime between the Third and Fourth Republics.)
And IIRC there wasn't much substantive difference between the Third and Fourth Republic; the latter was basically a restoration of the former after France was freed from German occupation, not a change in governing philosophy by the French people, so you could argue that there were as few as two substantively different French systems of government after the last monarch was deposed.
French model was largely a failure in every way. This is the 5th iteration of their republic now, and it's gripped by internal issues that can quickly approach those US is dealing with.
The important difference that you mentioned in your comment as well is: the French problems lie in the realm of possibilities, while the US problems are in the present. So the comparison doesn't really hold. Maybe it's also helping that the French iterated 5 times, a concept we are all taught in agile 101.
Based on this thread I'm starting to believe that any static governmental system is a failure and it's the iterations that bring about prosperity.
You also have to consider that the guillotine ended up killing more revolutionaries than nobles though.
There are also historical examples of nations where nothing was done to reign in the chaos and that led to far worse long term consequences for the people.
That is a divisive issue.
By “divisive” you mean dividing heads from bodies, right?
Yeah. Also called "air gapping".
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Looks to me like a legitimate and democratically elected regime. There are many unsolved issues in the world, having sympathy for people getting exactly what they want seems like a waste of a finite resource.
It is not a waste.
(1) It is still an interesting topic, because in this case, it has world-wide consequences.
(2) Many of the problems of the world can only be solved if people are convinced that those are important problems. You need to fix people's closest problems first, like their bread and perceived security. Each individual has just one life, I wouldn't say it's selfish to want an OKish life, and only then think about what's best for the human race.
(3) Most of the right voters were convinced (and might still be) that they were doing what is good for them. But it isn't. They voted wrong, they were tricked against their actual will.
(4) This is not a singular event. The same may happen somewhere near or around you maybe sooner than later, so analysig how it happened, which groups exactly voted against their own advantage, and how to make the consequences clear and understandable beforehand, and how to prevent it in general -- all this is important.
Not wasted resources at all. The opposite. We need to remember that this is not a boring news topic.
Until america experiences the full consequences for their stupidity they will continue being stupid. Children get told 100's of times they will burn their hand if they touch the stove. In the best case scenario they touch it once anyway, with a responsible person nearby and then never again.
The sooner that happens the better for everyone it is.
OK, burning is happening right now, so mission accomplished, I guess? Are you sure people will learn from it? And who is the responsible person nearby in this reality?
> Children get told 100's of times they will burn their hand if they touch the stove. In the best case scenario they touch it once anyway, ...
That is not the best case. I never burned myself on a stove.
Also, this is not an individual Darwin problem like the stove example -- this has consequences for many bystanders who did know better, and many more bystanders who had no say in this.
> OK, burning is happening right now
Nowhere near it, the hand is hovering near the fire - people are shouting "don't put your hand in the fire" and the kid is saying its nice and warm and see nothing bad has happened, I am going to put my hand right into the fire and it will be great.
Trump term 1 they bailed out the Farmers for 20bn when they messed around on tarrifs and blew it up. They learn't that there are only two outcomes to fucking around 1) you win, 2) you find out and they give you 20bn.
If those are your outcomes the only rational choice is to vote for Trump and cheer him on in fucking around as much as possible.
Let them burn their hand.
12 hours later: White House is considering a tariffs bailout for farmers
beeforpork says >"That is not the best case. I never burned myself on a stove."<
So you really have no idea! Sad!
I suppose you have also never been hungry and bitten into a wonderful-smelling and -tasting hamburger only to find that a finger (yours, to be clear) is in the bite, and thus you become at one moment both ravenous attacker and fearful prey struggling to escape?
Such experiences are part of life, to be embraced only afterward.
> beeforpork says >"That is not the best case. I never burned myself on a stove."< > So you really have no idea! Sad!
Is this like "you're not a strong man unless you've been this stupid at least once"?
Strong vs. weak does not seem like a desirable way to structure society. It's no fun. Yes, I also find football competitions really boring.
It isn't strong vs weak. But the lack of such experiences sets you apart from others and marks you as literally inexperienced. It does not mark you as smarter or stronger, but as one who simply "has no idea!" You'll never know (until you do!8-))
I revisited the "stove experience" several weeks ago. While at a convenience store I entered the restroom to find the sink water running full blast. This only increased my urgency and aided the process (as flowing, dripping, or running water often does). Once relieved, I walked over to the sink and plunged both hands into the cold whirling water in the basin. At once I was caught between my (vividly-imagined) thought of cool swirling relief and the sensory reality of boiling hot water - the former wished to enjoy the pleasant ice-cold flowing water in the sink and the latter could not withdraw fast enough.
Life provides you with a sequence of such experiences:
- a pre-adolescent viewing with puzzlement his older siblings as they mature and begin to participate in courtship,
- falling in love,
- making love, etc.
Some people never have certain experiences. We're all different to some degree b/c of that.
Go ahead, put your hand on the stove. But be careful about touching that woman!8-))
P.S. Yes, I turned the sink off, depriving the next poor soul of my worldly experience.
Dismantling the current world hegemony might have a few unanticipated impacts. When little Timmy responds to burning his hand by evaporating the world economy we might not be so smug.
The smug little so-and-so here is the USA. Dismantling their hegemony and releasing the 95% of the world that are not Americans, I am looking forward to it with the same enthusiasm as MAGA chants "lock her up".
The problem is that dismantling their hegemony in too fast of a fashion will cause the rest of the world _a lot_ of trouble.
Normal folks vote for the fascists.
How many Americans despise the liberal universities and their students? How many Americans think the US should be a Christian nation?
Fascism is popular. Many people will fall for it. Time and time again. The US is not special- it happened in Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Portugal. It can happen in America.
...has happen3d. <-FTFY
They're not selecting to maximize performance, they're selecting to maximize their own control. Pete Hegseth isn't SecDef because he's good at it. He leaks war plans and can't get through a press conference without being seen with a drink in his hand. He's SecDef because he'll do what Trump tells him to do regardless of whether it's legal or a good idea. The tariffs aren't meant to bring manufacturing back. They'd have gradual and consistent and the money raised would be earmarked for developing that industry at home if they were. They're arbitrary because they're the way the people in charge punish countries and companies that don't bend the knee. Everything they're doing is about removing the institution of government with its pesky rules and procedures and bringing everything under the control of one guy who can reward and punish arbitrarily as he sees fit. Overall economic performance simply isn't a factor.
It's changed my outlook a lot to make an arbitrary decision to stop assuming people are stupid when their stated goals don't line up with their actions, and to start assuming the easily predictable results of their actions are their actual goals regardless of what their stated goals are. Once I did that, I started being able to understand and even predict what these previously inscrutable people would do next.
?
I look forward to your article about Americans obviously being pro-obesity, and finding heart disease super attractive.
their stated goals (avoiding obesity) don't line up with their actions (food choices that promote obesity), so they must have different goals (enjoying food regardless of whether it promotes obesity). not the opposite of their stated goal, just a different one.
Then I can agree with that: short-sighted decision-making on both obesity and Trump's tariffs.
I think you're equivocating between the value of the actual goal itself and the value of the actions they're taking in the context of fulfilling that goal. Blowing up the economy to maximize your personal power is short-sighted, I agree, but once you accept that as Trump's goal you'll see that arbitrary tariffs (and other financial manipulation, look at how he's using federal funding to thought police universities and punish dissident state governors) is a ruthlessly effective strategy. If you don't do what he wants, he'll starve out you and your underlings until either you give up or the people beneath you revolt and replace you with someone who'll do what he says.
Do not, my friends, become addicted to [federal funding]. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence.
>is a ruthlessly effective strategy. If you don't do what he wants, he'll starve out you and your underlings until either you give up or the people beneath you revolt and replace you with someone who'll do what he says.
He really screwed up the "people beneath you" part with his "effective strategy" . The people beneath him wanted at best lower prices and at worst stronger deportation. As it is, they are the ones suffering the most from these economic policies (because blue states tend to have more funding to weather this BS) and he decided to go full mask off on the idea of deporting US citizens. These aren't popular actions nor views, outside of the most fringe supporters (who aren't enough to carry such a narrative).
The people beneath him aren't just not part of his plan, they're the lever he's pulling to get the powerful in line behind him.
Ok so you're a fan of aggressive stupidity. That's certainly on-brand American. Not relevant to this discussion though, you do you.
You're taking everything I discuss and projecting my moral approval on it. I've purposely expressed no opinion either way, but you can't fathom the idea that Trump might be good at something. You have to live in a world where he's just a flailing idiot, and I'd caution you to take some time with the fact that that flailing idiot is currently batting a very prescient .666 against those of us who'd like the USA to at least last out their own lifetimes.
lol you think .666 is a lot? The entire South has been stuck on this point for generations. They keep voting for tribalism/racism/nepotism, and the poorer they get the angrier and more aggressive they get.
Voting is just one big popularity contest, and 54% of American adults read at or below 6th grade levels.
I'm just not a good bootlicker. I call stupidity wherever I see it. You can keep your "caution", I'm moving on from this conversation.
It’s not about the economy! They don’t need that anymore. It’s about POWER.
They already have more than everything money can buy, and more than the GDP of most countries.
It’s not about the “company” anymore. They want _everything_. And will do whatever they can do get it, even if we think it looks stupid.
“Whoopsie doopsie we said something contradictory, anyway you’re all wrong and deported - don’t call back ever, and your school doesn’t get your taxes anymore but bombs for killing people in the Middle East does!”
Not stupid, just careless. Trump has fuck-you money, he doesn't care about the rest of the country. He wants means of extortion so people have to lick his boots to get a reprieve.
For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.
Is there any political tool to prevent rampant rule breaking and making the disliked rulebreaker specially vulnerable? Rule breaking is common and apocrypal form of strike involve following the rules to the letter and paralyzing the business. The prevailing principle is "you cant defend yourself by pointing to other rulebreakers" while reality is "its legal if a hundred businessmen do it".
> Is there any political tool
It's a social problem. Smaller democratic political arenas work closer to the ideal. Larger political arenas have more noise and less concise agendas, because of the disparate groups being appealed to. The US is too big. Large societies, across time trend toward authoritarianism (sometimes leading to full-fledged) until revolution and dissolution. Then the remaining states fight amongst themselves within a region, assembling into a singular organization due to practical and political factors, until it starts over again. Eventually you get something like europe and most of southeast asia. States tend to be more stable if they roughly match their regional terrain boundaries and aren't too large.
The whole society functions on a set of agreements. Some get codified in laws, many not. And as soon as some of those rules, laws or habits, get constantly broken, it means the society has changed. Now what? Do you accept the new change, or do you try to change it again? Remember, you can't enact a new rule - if it's not agreed upon it will simply not be applied.
The normative government continues to shrink while the prerogative government grows.
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It makes sense if you understand that they aren't focused on general principles. Diversity is bad when it involves non-whites, women, gay people or research involving these groups. Diversity is good when it involves "race realists." Free speech is bad when students are advocating for divestment initiatives. Free speech is good when a professor calls somebody the n-word online.
The goal is white supremacy and antifeminism.
The goal is power. Suppressing DEI, etc is just a simple way to find a group of people that have different values and eliminate them from the power structure.
An important part about targeting DEI and trans communities is that these two groups stand for immutable properties: I can’t change my race. I can’t stop being my gender identity.
When you “other” people based on immutable properties, it becomes very dangerous. If you can’t force someone to be white and straight, what do you do with them? The government stops funding programs to help these groups, they spread lies and fear about them, and then they sit back. When the people in power tell their supporters that the “other” are the enemy, what recourse is left for one’s safety other than violence. Authoritarian regimes always trend towards genocide, and they always target groups with immutable traits.
When these people use "freedom of speech" all they mean is they want to say their vile Nazi stuff without people complaining.
Also called freedom from consequences. Free speech makes sense in a free society, freedom from consequences does not. Yet that's what they're calling for.
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Sigh, no. Obviously, just about any argument from nazi immediately gains credibility nearly instantly. It surely approaches the merit of 'think of the children' in terms of its ease of use while maintaining its flag waving functionality.
And no, when people talk about "freedom of speech", it is not about just saying that. It is about saying anything. The problem is, and always has been, people. Why? Because when you defend it, you tend to defend ones that are, at best, edge cases.
Defending all speech however deplorable would be consistent and defensible. The administration isn’t doing that. They are targeting speech they don’t like. Don’t speak out against our genocide in Gaza or be deported/expelled. Don’t share your pronouns or lose your job. Etc.
Sure, but is it a good idea for us to abandon that idea and not defend it, while it is under assault from the administration. I personally would argue no, but I am very, very biased.
What I do not understand, and I do mean it, is why on earth would anyone argue to limit their own right to speech? Isn't it clear that you are, at best, undermining your own rights in the long term?
HAMAS is a designated terrorist organization. It is the U.S. government's job to keep out foreigners who overtly do things like support terrorist organizations, do human trafficking, etc.
It's quite simple, IMHO, and not a free speech issue. Americans don't owe entry to everyone who shows up at their borders, nor do they owe them a full suite of rights and legal protections once they're admitted.
Do you really believe that most of the people being deported or imprisoned by ICE this year are truly supporters of terrorism? Since no due process is being followed what gives you any confidence that the accusations against these people are true?
> Do you really believe that most of the people being deported or imprisoned by ICE this year are truly supporters of terrorism?
I don't think that's what's at stake here. I would assume the vast, vast majority of deportations are some version of "You're here illegally because you snuck in / overstayed your visa / lied on some form. Here's a ride back to $COUNTRY"
I think what is at stake is the small, small % of deportations that are because of particular speech or actions that aren't transparently crime (e.g., stealing a car is transparently crime).
And to answer your question, I don't know. While it doesn't appear to me that the Americans are reaching the highest possible standards of due process, "no" due process is pretty obviously false. And I don't think it's an issue of the accusations being true or false, either--my impression is the facts aren't in dispute, it's what happens based on the facts that is.
OK, all of that said: my guess is the people being deported for supporting HAMAS aren't HAMAS supporters in some sort of deep, true, essential way. They're kids or young people who are swept up in a fad.
How does that relates to the parents post ? For sure you can understand Hamas is a terrorist organisation AND any the same time that some wants to talk about the genocide in Gaza.
Also, using a terrorism judgement as an argument is a bit weak because it’s subjective, and because our western gouvernement do trade times to times with terrorist organisations. Heck my own countries is classified as a terrosist and I’m totally free to come visit the USA (which are themselves a terrorist state).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_terrorism
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-sponsored_terrorism
> For sure you can understand Hamas is a terrorist organisation AND any the same time that some wants to talk about the genocide in Gaza.
Totally. The pro-Palestine protesters at U.S. universities are often overtly pro-HAMAS too (or instead).
care to substantiate your claim?
"Protester outside Columbia University seen yelling ‘We’re all Hamas,’ ‘Long live Hamas’"
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/protester-outside-colum...
I was one of the people who briefly tried to take right wing “free speech” arguments at face value, eg when Elon Musk bought Twitter. Almost instantly he began allowing white supremacists and actual declared neo-Nazis back onto the platform, while kicking people off for any speech he didn’t like. I don’t think the claim “the recent right wing enthusiasm for ‘free speech’” does, in fact, selectively benefit Nazis and white supremacists” is actually wrong when you evaluate the effects.
Would you argue that the "kicking off" is more or less intense under Elon vs. the other guy?
My impression that the rate of censorship overall has plummeted. Pre-Elon, it was easy to get banned for wrongthing. People would gang up on wrongthinkers, mass-report them, etc.
I wonder what the rates of actual bans have been.
https://fortune.com/2024/09/25/twitter-x-account-suspensions...
tripled.
They just want to protect nazi speech, like I said in the downvoted comment.
I don't care what your vibes are here.
They aren't even against actual anti-semitism. Happy merchant memes, george soros conspiracies, protocols stuff, that's all A-ok because it's nazi stuff.
If you have the wrong opinion on israel palestine, it's the concentration camp for you.
The first group the nazis sent were social democrats, peace activists, journalists ... The famous nazi book burning was at an lgbt institute. I mean they're just doing nazi shit. I don't know why this isn't clear.
Thanks for looking that up.
Without knowing the denominator (# of accounts, # of posts, # of new accounts), I'm not sure what to make of it.
Even then, we want the subset of bans that were for political reasons (i.e., supporting Labour is fine, supporting Reform is hate speech). According to the actual report (which can be found here: https://transparency.x.com/content/dam/transparency-twitter/...), of 5,296,870 account suspensions only 2,361 were for "hateful conduct", while 57,185 were "violent and hateful entities" and 1,102,778 were for "abuse and harassment". Eyeing the categories, those are the only ones that seem plausible for political motivation.
So it's some subset of that 1,162,324 (22% of total) that we're interested in. I would bet the vast, vast majority of those either aren't politically motivated, or are politically motivated but in such a way that virtually everyone would agree (e.g., torturing puppies for fun).
And, of course, among politically-motivated bans, not all will be in support of Red Team / against Blue Team. Some will be bans of Red Team supporters, and for some the valence won't be clear.
> Even then, we want the subset of bans that were for political reasons (i.e., supporting Labour is fine, supporting Reform is hate speech).
Do you have any examples was banned for supporting Reform? I ask because I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve heard someone say they were banned for their political views and then checked to see that what actually got them banned was something like targeted harassment of a political opponent.
I didn't mean this as a real example, I meant it as illustrative. I've never seen anyone banned for supporting Reform (I've never seen anyone banned at all! I try to limit my internets).
If you're a free speech absolutionist (your argument was simply "kicking off got more intense"), it shouldn't matter what speech was said to get kicked. Politcal or not, it's all speech.
So the only way to retort the bans tripling is if you think Most people banned are not humans. Which is possible, but unlikely given current speculations that Twitter is 80% bots.
> Politcal or not, it's all speech.
This is a fair point. If I concede it, we still need some denominators.
> So the only way to retort the bans tripling is if you think Most people banned are not humans.
Denominators.
That's all speculative. Musk Twitter brought a bunch of far right provocateurs like Alex Jones Back on and increased the bans by 3x. There's more people leaving than coming to the platform.
That's what we do know.
As far as "Red/Blue" that's not current.
Instead we've got an establishment party, the Democrats, a disempowered left, a disempowered conservative party, and a party that does Nazi shit, the Republicans.
That's why a bunch of the Bush era conservatives lined up behind the Democrats, conservative and right wing are Not the same just like liberal and left wing are not
Nothing in my grandparent comment is speculative. I literally type out the data and discuss what additional information we would have to have in order to arrive at something approaching a meaningful estimate of the quantity we are both interested in.
As for Red/Blue not being current, I'm not an expert. The only bone I would pick is the Republicans aren't doing "Nazi shit". Nazi / Fascist used to mean something, you know. It seems like people are starting to use those words to mean "authoritarian" or something along those lines.
They're building concentration camps, sending peace activists to it.
They don't care about birthright or other forms of citizenship and are trying to do a nuremberg law to redefine it.
Also see Civil Service Law (1933) where they purged political opponents from government jobs.
They've tried to strip the power of the purse from Congress and ignore the courts which is how an enabling act would work in the US context.
He's even trying to Lebensraum Greenland.
The famous Nazi book burn was at an LGBT institute. They're demonizing the same group
Hitler even had an Elon Musk named Alfred Hugenberg. I mean it's like they hired historians to do a full reenactment.
I dunno. There's these people that are like "well you see the Nazis demonized Jews while Trump demonizes Muslims! The Nazi Beer Hall Putsch was in November and January 6 was in January! Trump has red hats while the Nazis had red armbands!" Just falls flat
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm going to be very honest with you: this strikes me as unhinged. I don't mean to put you down, I really mean to be honest. Our perceptions of the world are really, really different. I can imagine how you might believe things like this if you spent too much time in online echo chambers. The information environments they make for you are too...much. The bots run by nefarious parties seek only to make you feel the way you feel, make you believe the things you believe.
I can only recommend that you take a step back, and unplug, fellow traveler :-)
"Don't worry, nothing bad can ever happen" while people are sent away to gulags.
To "unplug" as you demand is morally reprehensible.
Is he morally obligated to participate? There are some interesting arguments on both ends, but I am curious what you mean by this.
I spend exactly Zero time on online echo chambers.
I don't use social media anymore and I don't own a television.
Auschwitz being in Germany was convenient because it was extrajudicial and outside of the German constitutional protection.
We're seeing the exact same thing. Trump shrugs that there's nothing he can do to bring the innocent person back AND that he intends to send thousands more regardless.
They've found their Auschwitz where people don't have a right to have rights as Hanna Arendt said. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Confinement_Center it even looks like a Nazi camp.
From the article "Trump further suggested to Bukele that he should "build about five more places" like CECOT"
They're actively trying to redefine citizenship status and send peace activists there.
What you're seeing is what Maurice Bardèche, the 60s French pro-fascist theorist was predicting. He's to fascism was Marshall McLuhan is to social media.
If these are new names to you then maybe the one scrolling through echo chamber memes might be you...
Personally I'm done with this fascist failing shit hole country.. I'm looking to leave. My portfolio is down over a million dollars since these Nazi retards took power.
Seriously, fuck this place
This is a general argument and has nothing to do with Elon Musk. He capitalizes on a weak position some of his political opponents bring forward. Not giving him the opportunity for that would have cost nothing... on the contrary.
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I'm not sure what "agree with the Palestinians" would mean. Like they are not happy with being genocided? I think that would be most people's feeling in that situation, though that doesn't show any proximity in belief, value or principle.
Yeah I guess this is what happens to censored viewpoints. Most people have only heard a caricature of it.
The world is really a lot more interesting if you try to understand everyone’s actual perspective. It also becomes much more coherent. Nobody is evil, they just have different interests and viewpoints.
In what I’ve seen of “race realist” writings online, they tend to be very anti Israel. So to associate the admin with “race realists” for cracking down on anti Israel protests strikes me as lacking an understanding of either the admin or of the “race realists” perspective.
> Nobody is evil, they just have different interests and viewpoints.
If you're arguing a fairy-tale definition of "evil" as an inherent property were people do evil for evil's sake, or simply can't help it, sure - almost nobody is "evil", if having actual, realistic motivations automatically disqualifies "evil".
I think evil can still be a useful, moral concept, if you give up the need for it to be absolute and objective, while accepting the ambiguity that comes with it. Still, it's likely possible for a lot of people to agree what constitutes evil, especially when seeing examples.
I would certainly like to keep considering things, actions and sometimes even people, to be "evil", _especially_ after considering their motivations, views and justifications.
>Nobody is evil, they just have different interests and viewpoints.
If your interest is in killing me on account of how I look and nothing else, I would indeed consider you evil. Your "viewpoints" end where my rights begin.
as for the admin, I don't care about their views. They have a constitution to follow. Which is specifically aobut what the government cannot do to its people. We tolerated KKK and Neonazi rallies under those principles of freedom of speech and assembly. While citizens can counter protest, the government stepping in to quash either of those people is illegal here.
"Race realism" is just a meaningless label Neo-Nazis use, because they are still trying to fly under the radar, or they are slightly embarrassed of being what their grand-parents fought. They might try to butter up their standing by (falsely) citing stuff like the Bell Curve, but it is still the same vile and evil ideology it was 80 years ago.
But not all fascists are neo-nazis. Just because a subset of today's fascists describe themselves that way, doesn't mean they are fundamentally different from other fascists. Look at Steven Miller; he's jewish, and quite obviously a white supremacist. He's all about dehumanizing people he thinks of as leser, and he welcomes the new fascist America. AfD, the german far-right party, is both very pro-Israel and loves to play "tread the nazi line and extend it"-game. Anti-semitism is a common, but not necessary prerequesite to fascism.
When I was younger I also thought the opposite of good should be bad, and it is silly to describe things as evil. I disliked the religious connotation, but have changed my mind. There are people committing absolutely horrible things, and calling it anything but evil is underestimating the depravity of those characters. To quote Captain G. M. Gilbert:
“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trails 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”
You say that as if the "admin" is one person. It's a loose collection of interests.
of course "race realists" tend to be anti-Israel; many of them are genuine neo-Nazis. the term arose back in the '90s among white supremacists, who tend to be heavily antisemitic.
the Trump admin aren't (for the most part) "race realists." or antisemitic. or philosemitic. no, the Trump admin is cynically indifferent to the plight of the Jewish people. they're using antisemitism as a cause celebre, a useful cudgel to attack their enemies on the Left. Republicans are using Jews the way the Democrats used trans people - as pawns in a game of identity realpolitik. at least until our political liability outweighs our usefulness, then we get left holding the bag.
you can spot false allies like this because they will amplify the most extreme voices, the most divisive and inflammatory rhetoric, when speaking for their charge. I guarantee you, most trans people didn't want Canadians fined for using the wrong pronouns, and most Jews don't want grad students deported for writing an op-ed. the loudest voices aren't ours.
It's a bit more complex.
Neonazis tend to like the idea of Israel while hating the occupants. They hate sending aide there but love it if Jews move there.
The notion of a Jewish state was an OG Nazi idea (see Madagascar plan). They wanted a place to send their unwanted citizens.
On top of that, core to most fundamentalist Christian belief is that utopia will happen after a strong Israel gets involved in massive wars. That value is why you may see neonazis cheering on Israel as an aggressor because they believe it'll lead to utopia.
This is why mixing support for Israel with whether or not someone is antisemitic is silly. Israel isn't the Jews and Jews aren't Israel.
And it seems to work quite well in the current political landscape and the use of such tactics certainly got more common in recent years. It seems to work better with reactionary groups since they would accept any and all reason for their animosity anyway.
Yeah, Nazi seen themselves as heroes building better future for the Germany. Stalinists seen themselves as heroes too. They just had different interests and viewpoints. And those different viewpoints indeed make them indeed "evil". And dangerous.
Also, seeing people whose goals are cruelty to others or harm to me as neutral is wrong.
"Race realists" tend to be anti-jew but not anti-Israel. Israel provides a few key benefits for their belief system even if they hate jewish people. It means that there is a place for jewish people "over there" and not here. And it provides a starting point for their ethno-nationalist project in other countries ("if Israel can be a country for Jews then why can't Germany be a country for Whites").
Further, the Trump administration is committing violence against people simply advocating for no more bombing in Palestine. Despite the administration's claims that these people are "Hamas supporters" and "anti-semites", the bulk of these people are not actually advocating for violence to be done to jewish people that might put them in concert with far-right anti-semites.
Genocided is certainly the wrong term. It is not on all Palestinians but the government of Gaza did attack Israel. It fired an insane amount of rockets before their latest attack too, but that has already been seen as normalized. Which is ridiculous as well.
If oppression justifies these rocket attacks, a lot more than some rhetoric can be justified as well.
No it’s absolutely the correct term. What are you a BBC anchor?
I am not learned enough on this topic but:
>the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.
I don't know how you say that isn't aa textbook definition of genocide.
Israel has security interests after it was attacked by Hamas. It did withdraw from Lebanon, Gaza and quite a few other places that immediately filled with militant terrorists. And this latest escalation only happened because of an attack as well, otherwise Gaza would look quite differently now.
To say their goal is just killing people is way out of context and blind to the facts.
Either these places find peaceful solutions like Egypt or Jordan, or they will face military consequences for their aggression that will also hit innocents, which is what is happening now.
Hamas wanted to start this war, not Israel. There are numerous way for them to get their land back and sue for peace if they take the chance. Of course they don't get land that is Israels, they have lost their war.
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> Diversity is bad when it involves Whites, men, straight people or research involving these groups.
If you think that's what the "other side" is saying, then you've completely misunderstood what the diversity idea is about. You can't compare one idea with the misrepresentation of the opposing idea. That's just making things up.
It even has a name: strawman argument. And it's so popular!
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and yet when fields with a dearth of White Men offer recruiting events tailored to them, the "other side" is up in arms about it. Its clear that no part of DEI wants to include Whites, Men, or the doubly dreaded White & Men combo.
https://journals.rcni.com/nursing-standard/comment/a-focus-o...
The problem is- they are not anti-racist honest. You are either nurture or nature, but if its all nurture, they refuse to discuss that part, compare those parts, work out the problematic parts and compose better societal models. They just idealise, bigott stay quiet and adverse engage only with those who respond civilized. Its all lies and damned lies and statistics.
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Unfortunately, unlike the post above mine, my list is grounded in reality.
Again, both sides play this game, both sides claim to have "reality" on their side.
As loathe as you may be to admit it, there is such a thing as truth. Both sides claiming something doesn’t mean both sides claims are true (or conversely that neither sides claim is true).
You don’t seem to be thinking very well.
Whoosh, my point exactly. This is an r/selfawarewolves-tier comment.
You don't seem to be thinking very well.
Come on man this isn’t Reddit.
The demands of the administration are the demands of a bully who doesn't want your lunch money, he just wants you to know he can take it away at any time.
"Show me the man and I'll show you the crime."
Any organization is probably in violation of any number of rules and regulations due to the sheer number of them.
Just wait till the sniffling Marc Andreessen shows up to explain why this will save his small town brethren.
It’s a good strategy. Even if Harvard had attempted to satisfy every bullet point, the govt could still retort that their demands were not satisfied.
Like the whole initial excuse for the tariffs on imports from Canada "because of fentanyl" despite <1% of fentanyl coming into the US arriving via the Canadian border https://www.npr.org/2025/02/02/nx-s1-5283957/fentanyl-trump-...
If you don't measure you can just assume all valies are 0.
But assuming it's a large number is not possible, of course.
I assume it's a large number because the fentanyl superlative the Canadian police raided had literal tons of precursors.
so you understand how much "tons" is with regards to a population of 330m Americans? Now consider that China probably has gigatons and is where all of NA gets most of its supply.
Hmmm, is this akin to what Russia means, when it says "we do not negotiate with terrorists"?
Typical mafia technique ensuring perpetual extorsion.
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They want to have the old system (deliberate bias and vehement denials of there being any "bias,") but working for them, and the way to demand that without describing it is to require all of the results and "forbid," by name only, the necessary methods.
It all makes sense with a fascist power logic. The goal isn't to implement consistent policy to reach rational targets. The goal is to wield power and slowly errode any opposition with divisive actions that support anybody that is loyal to you. Importantly being loyal doesn't guarantee you will be spared. In these goals consistency is irrelevant, in fact being inconsistent and acting with arbitrary despotism is a feature since it produces more fear.
If you ever find any fascist critique of their enemies you will quickly realize that all of which they accuse their enemies of doing, they will do themselves. Decry freedom of speech as no one is "allowed" to say sexist/racist things anymore? Be sure they will go in and ban books, political thoughts and literal words. Hillarys emails? We literally operate our foreign policy in signal groups.
Quite frankly I am a bit puzzled by the neutrality with which some Americans try to analyze this absolutely crazy political situation. It is like pondering over the gas mixture in the smoke while your house is on fire, absolutely unhinged.
I’d like to get out while I can, but to what country? Any suggestions?
By the way the answer to your question is simple: the American people are fascists, not just the president.
First I think people who recognize there are problems is what is needed now. You leaving makes things worse.
Then again, it is understandable not everybody has the luxury to be in circumstances that allow adequate forms of resistance.
If you ask about which country, I'd say it depends. It depends on who youaare, what your skills are, which climate zones and cultures you prefer, whether you're willing to learn a new language and so on.
Canada.
Nothing they do makes sense until you accept that hypocrisy is a feature, not a bug, for them and their base. They know that what they're asking for is impossible to meaningfully comply with...
because they can use as excuse to stop the funding nonetheless, it's impossible to 100% comply with contradictory requests
It could be a feature not a bug. Inventible violations can be used as leverage for future requests/mandates.
You see the establishment of separate, unwritten classes of things here, right? It will be a case-by-case basis which of these rules is invoked, that way no matter what happens they're "just following the rules we all agreed to" but they get to hand-select which thoughts are compulsory and which are forbidden.
What the demand is, is institutional fealty to Donald Trump. Trying to interpret it as anything else is going to lead these institutions into poor decision making. Harvard is doing the right thing.
and the irony at the beginning of the demanding government letter:
"But an investment is not an entitlement."
>>- a new diversity initiative for diverse points of view
I'm sure we both know what this one means though. Forcing the university to hire people who think the earth is flat and that climate change isn't real - for the sake of diversity of course.
But also diversity is banned.
On that point they mean anyone who isn't white, male, cis, straight, and currently able-bodied.
I don't think it's confusing. It's classic "my way or the highway" stance. "Free speech for everyone! (except for things I don't like...)".
It makes sense when you realize that their true position is "free speech for me but not for thee". The contradictions are about censoring speech they disagree with and promoting speech they like.
They go after their enemies (liberals, trans, pro palestinians, brown migrants) and help their friends (right wing white people).
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To the fascist regime, "diversity" means "hiring black or gay people". Likewise "diverse points of view" means "viewpoints that think it's okay for black and gay people to be hired and for transgender people to pee". And "speech control" means "kicking out people who shout Hitler did nothing wrong in the middle of the library". And "inclusion" means "letting black or gay people study". It's all newspeak.
The demands only seem inconsistent if you don't look at the actual principle underlying them. Political discourse tends to present opposing ideologies as being about principles like "free speech" or "free markets" - it's really all about power, who has it, and who wants it.
In this case its strengthening particular social and economic hierarchies - america vs the rest of the world, and white christians over non-whites or non-christian.
What's interesting is that this is not necessarily a struggle between the top of a hierarchy vs the bottom of one, but between two different hierarchies. The democrats support cultural non racial and economic hierarchies, while the republicans support racial international and the same economic hierarchies. So while they both support the rich over the working class, there is a struggle over whether to support racial and international hierarchies. Democrats tend to support globalization, i.e unifying of the power of the top of the economic hierarchy across international boundaries, while eliminating racial and sexual hierarchies as they are seen as "inefficient" from a neoliberal perspective. Republicans are more focused on the "national elite", the rich people that depend on america being a global hegemon specifically, energy industry, military industira-complex, etc..
Plenty of Democratic voters are on board with taxing the rich and flattening those economic hierarchies.
The problem has been that the Democratic party is the neoliberal wing of the establishment. Its purpose has been to create the illusion that economic progress is possible while working hard to maintain the economic status quo. Cultural diversity was the distraction and consolation prize.
Now the establishment wants full, unquestioned, totalitarian control now and no longer cares about maintaining the illusion of choice.
Ultimately it wants a country run on plantation lines with voting rights restricted to wealthy white male property owners, a "Christian" moral narrative (really just racism, greed, supremacism, and sexual opportunism dressed up in bible rags) and no independent sources of intellectual dissent.
Which means the bare minimum of public education, no science, no difficult or non-commercial art, no free thought in universities or academia, and as little free travel and contact with the outside world as possible.
The most comparable country is North Korea. So the likely end will be a heavily militarised and even more heavily propagandised country, run as a pampered inherited monarchy which tolerates a certain amount of education when it's useful, but is violently hostile to all dissent.
It's quite hard to get there from here. The shock-and-awe of the last few months were supposed to establish dominance, but it's not going to happen without resistance. Harvard is one example. There will be more.
Ultimately the military will be used to force compliance, and - absent a not entirely unexpected medical event - they'll decide which way this goes.
it's pretty clear. it's twitter's policy. neo-Nazi rhetoric must be allowed, empathy must be banned.
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They're so "accepting of diverging viewpoints" they mandated Harvard to devote effort to monitoring the viewpoints of foreign students so they can be deported for wrongthink...
Weird how many people with "diverging viewpoints" are getting grabbed off the street by masked ICE agents then.
Zero? I’m a visa holder in the US and I’m aware that supporting terrorists and celebrating violence against Jewish people is probably not going to make the country keep me here.
Weird how wide the definition of "supporting terrorists" seems to be. Especially given that State has now said that people's "expected future beliefs" can be used to disqualify them.
Have you no hesitation, even at this late juncture? Read everyone elses comment above, and try to stretch your critical thinking ability just a bit.
Trump is our Caesar, we have ceased to be a constitutional republic, and you defend this with blithely pretending that 2 months of pure power-madness have not been occurring in plain view of the entire world?
I suspect that such discourse as we have will not be "permitted" indefinitely.
No, I have no hesitation. How are you not finding it obvious that the government are trying to end racially based admittance programs?
Because I read the letter from the government to Harvard. Did you? Racially-based admittance is only one bullet out of ten. The government isn't demanding specific policy changes, they are demanding cultural and ideological control of the university.
Did you? As you can read, they tackle racial bias immediately and follow up with preventing advocacy for terrorism and racism, then viewpoint divergence. At no point are they arguing for a single viewpoint to exist, they are CONSISTENTLY doing the exact opposite:
https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/...
The people we must be concerned about that are arguing for a single viewpoint controlling American universities are those like yourself that oppose pluralism.
> The people we must be concerned about that are arguing for a single viewpoint controlling American universities are those like yourself that oppose pluralism.
I'm all for pluralism. I have no objection at all to the existence of as many conservative academics as you please or whole (private) universities explicitly committed to conservative ideology. But there is no legal basis for the government to tell a private university who it should hire, fire, promote, or admit on ideological grounds. And it's also a super-ultra-clear first amendment violation to compel the speech of a private institution.
Finally, I'd like to point out the rank hypocrisy of calling for "merit-based" hiring and admissions in one breath, and then in the next demanding a quota system for ideology: "Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity; every teaching unit found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by admitting a critical mass of students who will provide viewpoint diversity." The government, as conservatives are so fond of saying, shouldn't "pick winners."
If there are a "critical mass" of "viewpoint diverse" Harvard-caliber professors out there looking for a position they should start their own university and admit that critical mass of "viewpoint diverse" Harvard-caliber students.
"By August 2025, the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse."
They are calling for Republican commissars in universities and accusing you of being the one who wants to enforce a single viewpoint and call you the enemy of pluralism. Not surprised, but I continue to be infuriated to witness such shameless insincerity from Republicans.
Yes, because universities have shown they want to enforce a single viewpoint on students, the government is using its funding contributions to encourage viewpoint diversity. There is certainly some shameless insincerity going on, as well as a disgusting disregard for logic.
Typical conservative doublespeak - speak as though there are commissars suppressing political dissidence so you can actually have an excuse to install commissars to suppress political dissidence. Conservatives have long disdained education for decades and abandoned its institutions, and now that they aren't bowing down, you want to use the government to force them to do so. The disgusting disregard for logic here is on you.
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I imagine you would sign a different tune if Biden admin hypothetically forced your employer via federal funding to make you say "Trans Rights!", for plurality of thought of course.
Your logical fallacy is false equivalence. Nobody is asking for compelled speech here.
And yes, after being forced to start business meetings with a brief mention of whether anyone is transgender for the last few years, nearly everyone hates that. That’s why democrat approval is so low.
> Nobody is asking for compelled speech here.
It's implicit, you just don't want to see it. It's literally political commissars.
> And yes, after being forced to start business meetings with a brief mention of whether anyone is transgender for the last few years, nearly everyone hates that.
What are you talking about? I never seen that or do you mean that people present themselves in a business meeting? Is this compelled speech to you? Hearing "Hi my name is Mark, call me he" is such a earth shattering trauma that you'll allow party officials in your universities?
> It's implicit
Cool, you have no evidence.
> What are you talking about? > Hearing "Hi my name is Mark, call me he"
So you know.
So if I tell you to call me by my foreign middle name I'm forcing you to know I'm not white? Will you shit and cry if a woman talks about her wife during a coffee break?
The obvious fact is that what makes you mad is not the mention, it's the presence. Now you will say something of the lines "you are slandering me without evidence" because in bizarro land one cannot read beyond the strictly literal.
It's the same (intentional) blindness that can read this:
> [...] the University shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse. This audit shall begin no later than the summer of 2025 and shall proceed on a department-by-department, field-by-field, or teaching unit-by-teaching-unit basis as appropriate. [...]
> [...] Every department or field found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty within that department or field who will provide viewpoint diversity; every teaching unit found to lack viewpoint diversity must be reformed by admitting a critical mass of students who will provide viewpoint diversity. If the review finds that the existing faculty in the relevant department or field are not capable of hiring for viewpoint diversity, or that the relevant teaching unit is not capable of admitting a critical mass of students with diverse viewpoints, hiring or admissions within that department, field, or teaching unit shall be transferred to the closest cognate department, field, or teaching unit that is capable of achieving viewpoint diversity. [...]
And not get that "viewpoint diversity" is literally whatever the federal government wants. You don't succumb in some lite-Maoist struggle session? Fired. Your department grows a spine? Fired and subsumed to an already captured department. Posted anti-Trump sentiment in social media? Sorry, we reached the quota for liberals.
If I did find/replaced all the indications that this is a Trump initiative and gave you this during the Biden presidency you would be foaming at the mouth. Be honest with yourself.
> We have established
No, you have accused without basis, because you know you have no defense of installing conservative Republican commissars in schools, and to privilege the Republican students and workers present, so your only hope is to gaslight and imply that your opposition is the same—again, typical of authoritarian conservative Republicans. You can keep accusing and gaslighting, but I will never submit to your dishonest narratives to justify the Trump regime's actions.
There is absolutely basis to say that you prefer an ideologically uniform college campus and are campaigning against plurality of thought. For example, your comments in this thread arguing against efforts to support a diverse range of viewpoints in higher education.
Accusing people that support diversity of thought as being authoritarian is more projection and also quite funny.
There are no Republican commissars. That is the conspiracy theory you made up.
There is no privilege for Republican students or workers. That is a conspiracy theory you made up.
The Trump administration is not a regime (in the traditional sense this word is used, ie for dictatorships) because you dislike it winning an election.
I am not a republican. I would desperately like the Democrats to become electable again. Advocating for admissions racism and brainwashing children into racist conspiracy theories about Jewish people doesn’t seem to be a good way to do that.
I accuse you of gaslighting because you speak well enough that you are probably not stupid, but rather completely aware of what you are saying is false. I suspect you think your righteous anger makes what you say true. It does not.
That is a circular argument. Your basis that I'm arguing against plurality of thought is that you have labeled my comments as having done so.
Yes, I'm calling Republican commissars authoritarian.
I'm literally quoting the letter saying that they demand an external party to audit the student body, the leadership, the staff, and their teaching units for sufficient "viewpoint diversity," which reports directly to the federal government. It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to see that this is a euphemism for instilling conservative Republican thought in the student body and in the classes they take. And yes, this will privilege conservative students and staff, because non-conservative staff will be fired and students will be denied admission as a result of this.
Do you think dictatorships have never been elected? Trump will not be held accountable for the laws he breaks, because his party would never betray him as their leader. He will not leave office. He will send and has sent people illegally and without due process to a confinement center in El Salvador in co-operation with Bukele, another authoritarian. I doubt there will be fair elections in red states - they'll probably claim mass fraud and throw out allegedly fraudulent votes. They already tried to send fraudulent electors to make Trump president in 2020, and a violent mob to the Capitol after that, as well as pressured election officials in swing states to find votes.
You may not call yourself a Republican, but I make no distinction among those who defend the regime so wholeheartedly. Keep playing the fool; it will not justify your authoritarian apologetics.
> But there is no legal basis for the government to tell a private university who it should hire, fire, promote, or admit on ideological grounds.
That's true. Harvard can absolutely continue to hire for, advocate for, and grade for a single political viewpoint, provided it does not take federal funding.
They can also continue to racially discriminate as title IX only applies to organizations that take federal funding.
Harvard should also lose their current non-profit status per Bob Jones University v. U.S. (1983) if they continue to racially discriminate.
So long as they're their viewpoints.
You don't see letters going out to conservative institutions demanding they hire gender ideology professors or communists.
I’m not sure the government is funding many conservative institutions.
You'd be hilariously incorrect about that.
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> I asked an LLM
A half step from "I asked a magic 8-ball" on this type of question.
> it's fairly clear they mean
"It's fairly clear that Herr Hitler only means to instill properly virtuous German educational values."
No, we've seen more than enough to know exactly what kind of administration this is, and how it lies.
FFS it's just 3 months in and already they're kidnapping people from America into concentration camps for the rest of their lives (however short that might be) with no trial nor even the pretense of charges.
Come to think of it, what's The Hacker News policy on storing user information? Is it time for people who aren't fans of the current administration to make new accounts?
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I was brought up as an American to believe that most important American value inscribed in the constitution was that the government cannot control your speech. So regardless of what Harvard does or does not do that quote, coming from the government especially, is simply unAmerican on its face.
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Whether or not they should is irrelevant. What is relevant is the government cannot infringe on Harvard’s speech.
Also this has nothing to do with immigration. It would be the same situation if everyone at Harvard were 10th generation Americans.
Harvard's admittance policy should not be up to the government outside of preventing discrimination along protected classes. If Harvard admits students that are bad consistently, and they turn out to be bad hires/professional connections, then Harvard the institution will lose its competitiveness with other schools for the best talent and previous alumni will pressure/complain that recent admittance policies are devaluing their degrees.
> Do you think Harvard should admit students that are, "hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence
I'm not sure you thought this through—if Harvard stopped accepting Republicans like you're suggesting, I'm not sure how many people would be left.
> Do you think Harvard should admit students that are, "hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence
Sure, why not? Everything should be open to criticism at our institutions of higher learning. If not there, where? That which is above criticism is dogma.
> including students supportive of terrorism and anti-Semitism
In Trump administration code, this means "has ever said anything positive about the Palestinian people." So yes, them too.
There are 2 issues here. The first is that it's not consistent with ending speech control policies.
The second is that hostility to American values is actually pretty subjective. For instance, the January 6 insurrectionists were very hostile to American values and used violent terroristic tactics to try to destroy the constitutionally mandated transfer of power. But Trump pardoned them all because it improves his ability to wield violence against America in the future.
It's impossible to take any of this document seriously in that light.
1. First off, yes they should.
2. We both know and understand that's not what's actually happening. When you have people peacefully protesting for the genocide in Palestine to end and they get disappeared by the state, then the situation is different. Please, at least try to be honest.
that's an odd take, given how the orangefuhrer treats the C constitution.
The demands are simple and not confusing at all.
- Stop promoting Democrats' agendas as the ultimate truth; stop bullying people for non-Democratic views - Allow Republicans' agendas to be equally represented
Is it really so difficult to understand?
Out of many bad things Trump has done, this isn't really bad for anyone except core Democrats voters.
The US academia has become hostile to anyone except one particular culture. This should stop.
Conservatives should start their own universities, if they aren't happy with the existing ones. The federal government has no business enforcing conformity to certain ideological demands in private institutions. It's right there in the very first amendment.
If the university was founded by the government, it should represent Americans. All of them. Half of Americans are conservative. Approx. half of academia should be conservative.
Harvard is older than both parties. There is no good reason why it should cater to only one half of Americans.
It was founded by a government, not the federal government, let alone this government. It was founded before this government existed.
And it's been a private institution for hundreds of years.
Why should any university go out of its way to "cater to" conservatives and liberals in equal measure if those ideologies don't equally value things like reason and truth? The mission should be providing education and facilitating research, not keeping political partisans happy.
So, we should have merit-based hiring with respect to race and gender, but then have a quota-based system for political affiliation? How do you even measure this? Who counts as a "conservative"? MAGA-only, or do we get to count RINOs? Won't people just lie about their political beliefs to get a job? Do you detect any irony in the way your agenda exactly parallels that of structural racists who see racism in any job where the racial distribution doesn't match that of the general population?
The reason that academia is overwhelming left-leaning is that those are the people that choose to go to grad school and pursue academic careers. For whatever reason (whether ability or inclination) conservatives do so in much smaller numbers. You want conservatives in academia, go get a Ph.D.
Are you arguing that _all_ universities that receive government funding should cater equally to conservatives and liberals? Given that Texas Christian University receives funding from the government, would you argue that it too should stop receiving federal funding until represents America equally?
If they receive federal funding, they should represent Americans. If 100% of Americans will be Democrats, then it can be this monoculture. If more people shift to Green politics, or Libertarian, it should represent those more too.
If there is a Christian university, it should either be sponsored by Christians only, or similar funding should go to other universities representing other major American groups (for example Jews).
Discrimination based on political views should be treated the same as discrimination based on sexual orientation or race.
So you do think that Texas Christian University should lose all federal funding until it proportionally represents all Americans' political beliefs?
I have answered that already.
Either lose funding, or comparable other universities should be funded so all relevant spectrum is covered.
Federally funded institutions should cater for all Americans. The army, police, schools, hospitals... shouldn't be there only for one half of people.
Conservatives have started their own Universities. No one likes going to those schools, and they end up bankrupt, with students who are functionally uneducated.
So, there you go, the market has spoken.
So the existing ones don't need government money, then, right?
Stanford for example.
> Conservatives should start their own universities
They did. Remember Trump University? It got shut down for fraud.
I don't think Trump University was ever indented to be a real university. Wasn't it basically the Trump-branded version of those late night infomercials promising to teach you how to get rich in real estate? You know, the ones where ultimately they basically just sell you a bunch of tapes for $5000?
If you're looking for an actual conservative university, a better example would be a place like Liberty University. I think the problem is starting an institution is hard, it'll only really hit its stride like 100 years after being founded, and it's hard to keep an ideological project on track for such a long period of time.