24 Comments

I'm disappointed that the present sad state of the ACLU as an anti-free-speech organization was not discussed ...

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"this poses perhaps even more of a threat to a robust free speech culture than right-wing attempts to shut speech down" - any recent examples of "right wing"attempts to shut free speech down? At least in the past several years it appears to be primarily. a left wing effort, especially on college campuses and the general sense of cancel culture.

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Actually was pretty boring conversation.

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Another excellent from Jeffrey Tucker at Brownstone https://brownstone.org/articles/the-culpability-of-the-new-york-times-then-and-now/

Also: The Smear by Sharyl Attkinsson ( 2017 ) is excellent.

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A while back I took one of those online surveys that are supposed to identify your political position. Turns out I'm a left of center libertarian....LOL! Who knew? I always though of myself as a right of center authoritarian:)

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Thank you for this very informative interview.

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FREE speech only works when all left/right / out in space have the same rights when you rate something you don't like or agree with as hate speech we all lose . ACLU they are now the problem , what happened ? You were on the inside tell us .

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Left vs. Right is a false dichotomy. If you examine people's beliefs on an individual basis, you'll find they're all over the map. This is because most people lack a solid foundation for their beliefs and simply agree with whatever feels right to them. Blue team vs. Red team. All the same cult-like behaviour. People feel a need to belong to a group. Nothing unusual about that, we are social animals, but it leaves us open to exploitation by other people who understand how that works and use it to their own advantage.

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It never takes Tara long to expose her blind-spots and echo chambers. She likes to do it right up front. "I always assumed that free speech was a leftist value." No wonder journalism is such a mess. It is filled with people whose BIASES far far far outweigh their capacity to actually THINK.

Tara, do you ever think about the things you say?

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A long time ago I was on a forum, maybe CompuServe, and the discussion went to free speech. There was a guy from BC, a lefty who was wondering about the value of letting cranks spout off. I posted some on the union rhetoric that I had heard. Easily characterized as hateful, divisive, and definitely subversive, challenging the rightfully of government structures, calling for their overthrow. That rhetoric was instrumental in the quest for improved working conditions and wages.

I ran into something he wrote later taking a firm stand on his right to say "Eat the rich!"

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Tara has never once said that she has changed her thinking. She always tries to weasel out of any change, looking for externalities or exceptions that explain why her fundamental view is contradicted by current evidence. Anyone who reads many of her words should realize she is not changing her FUNDAMENTAL thinking and none of these conversations will do that.

In this instance, without going back and re-reading, Tara weasels out by saying "PERHAPS" attacks on freedom of speech by the "left" is as dangerous as those by the "right". "PERHAPS". The conclusion is obvious. Tara, status quo. How she was programmed in her teens is how she'll be tomorrow and next month and so on.

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The Hentoff book is well worth the read.

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