Comment by NoImmatureAdHom
4 hours ago
> So you'd be fine with say, Kamala, running on a campaign of crushing dissent because the courts will say "lol no"? Is that what I'm reading?
No, I wouldn't be fine with it.
Do you imagine this is what Trump is doing? Or that Democrats don't do the same? Democrats ran a long and successful campaign to crush anti-woke dissent, for instance. Broke lots of laws (and still do!) in the process. Questioning woke orthodoxy could get you blackballed or fired in government, and they wielded power to make sure the same was true in many non-gov institutions. They were even on the path to first amendment restrictions to protect this crusade. Even compelled speech in Biden's last Title IX!
Anywho, to steelman I think you would need to explicitly make the leap from "flag burning" to "running a campaign of crushing dissent", because flag burning doesn't seem like even part of a campaign against crushing dissent. It seems like empty pandering to stupider supporters.
> Democrats ran a long and successful campaign to crush anti-woke dissent, for instance. Broke lots of laws (and still do!)
Citation/elaboration needed. Same goes for the Title IX comment. How did Biden "compel speech" on campuses?
> and they wielded power to make sure the same was true in many non-gov institutions
Again, cancel culture, no matter how aggressive, is not the same as using the monopoly on violence to get your way. Woke mob vs federal agents. You could argue that some of Trump's actions like his lawsuit against the pollster aren't an official government action, but it certainly is a huge break from norms for a sitting President to sue over speech he doesn't like.
> explicitly make the leap from "flag burning" to "running a campaign of crushing dissent"
It's much more than just flag burning, as I've shown.
I appreciate you engaging.
1) https://speechfirst.org/case/title-ix/ is the third ddg result for title ix compelled speech. Basically, the feds under Biden were going to compel use of people's preferred pronouns. Ideally it would have failed in court.
Elaboration: For a very long time, in many states and parts of the federal government, there has been overt discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability status, etc. in direct and obvious violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Things like skin-color quotas for hiring, preferences for vendors, etc. You're certainly familiar. They hired people who would, at the very least, not speak out against their regime's practices, and ideally who would help perpetuate them.
> Again, cancel culture, no matter how aggressive... It's not just twitter mobs. To get the large gov't grants necessary to be successful in science, for instance, it was ~mandatory for the past while to have a DEI angle on your application. Many forms actually had a section for it. So, in this case, the gov't isn't using its monopoly on violence exactly, but it's not cancel culture. (and of course there were many grants funded that weren't just a DEI angle, it was 100% DEI bullshit)
"A huge conspiracy to overtly break the law" is what DEI was and still sadly largely is.