Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by cmn32480 on Sunday May 07 2017, @07:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the when-the-First-Amendment-isn't-clear-enough dept.

NPR reports:

On college campuses, outrage over provocative speakers sometimes turns violent.

It's becoming a pattern on campuses around the country. A speaker is invited, often by a conservative student group. Other students oppose the speaker, and maybe they protest. If the speech happens, the speaker is heckled. Sometimes there's violence.

In other cases — as with conservative commentator Ann Coulter at the University of California, Berkeley last week — the event is called off.

Now, a handful of states, including Illinois, Tennessee, Colorado and Arizona, have passed or introduced legislation designed to prevent these incidents from happening. The bills differ from state to state, but they're generally based on a model written by the Goldwater Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Arizona.

The model bill would require public universities to remain neutral on political issues, prevent them from disinviting speakers, and impose penalties for students and others who interfere with these speakers.

The author of the model bill argues that the neutrality stipulation is necessary for public institutions funded by tax dollars, "who shouldn't be forced to subsidize speech that they disagree with." In response to the legislation, a Democratic North Carolina legislator criticized the bill as an unnecessary "regulation of a constitutional right." The story also mentions that "Critics say this kind of legislation could hinder a university's ability to regulate hate speech on campus," but the bill author responds that hate speech is "not well-defined in the law."

Although the proposed legislation varies by state, the model bill linked above recommends a number of initiatives, from clear campus policies on protecting free speech to severe disciplinary actions for students who interfere with that right. Perhaps the strongest section of the model bill would require that "Any student who has twice been found responsible for infringing the expressive rights of others will be suspended for a minimum of one year, or expelled" (Section 1.9).

In other free speech news, USA Today reports that the FCC is launching an investigation into an "obscene" joke by Stephen Colbert concerning Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, which caused a Twitter firestorm and led to a trending #FireColbert hashtag. While the joke was sexually explicit, the offensive word was bleeped in broadcast. CNN has argued that the FCC is merely doing its job in investigating "a number" of complaints, but Slate notes the high legal threshold that would be necessary for a fine in this case, given the late hour of the broadcast and the three-pronged test for obscenity.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday May 07 2017, @11:25PM (13 children)

    by Arik (4543) on Sunday May 07 2017, @11:25PM (#506051) Journal
    Like virtually all the coverage from the Guardian re: Trump and Brexit, this piece goes off into the wilderness of conspiracy theory for no reason other than the authors obvious inability to cope with cognitive dissonance. They produce all sorts of breathless innuendo and maybe and what if and blah blah blah and it's really all just to avoid looking the obvious truth in the face. The left wing politicians (and the governments in general, but the left wing politicians notably even in comparison) have become so completely out of touch with their electorates, and so completely tone deaf to any disagreement, that the electorate gave them a big old raspberry, those results were for example not so much an endorsement of Trump as a giant "F U" to the Democratic Party machine that attempted to coronate Queen Hillary "by any means necessary."

    Their apparent collective inability to understand that simple message, as seen by so many elaborate attempts to invent some sort of alternative meaning, appears to guarantee they'll lose the next one too.
    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 08 2017, @04:31AM (12 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 08 2017, @04:31AM (#506175)

    You do realize Trump lost the popular vote right? The electorate actually disagrees with the minority of cowardly nationalists who also happen to have pretty much the entire population of neo-nazis as well. You should really think long and hard about who your compatriots are and what they stand for. Maybe research the issues from an objective standpoint and review actual facts instead of letting your emotions get triggered by click-bait stories.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday May 08 2017, @04:51AM (11 children)

      by Arik (4543) on Monday May 08 2017, @04:51AM (#506184) Journal
      You realize there is no such thing as 'the popular vote' in that race, right?

      You mean more people nationwide voted for Clinton, I presume, and that may be true, by a fairly slim margin. She won the big cities where she was always going to win, but the large majority of the country repudiated her, and our system specifically requires the sort of diversity in support that Trump got and Clinton did not in order to win.

      My read of the electorate is that they are so sick of the established political authorities and orthodoxies that they intentionally chose a clown for the top post rather than rubberstamp the supposedly inevitable Clinton succession. If you disagree please, feel free to post an explanation that fits the facts and makes sense and isn't some sort of intricate psychothriller plotline that only happens in paperback.

      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 08 2017, @06:15AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 08 2017, @06:15AM (#506209)

        You realize there is no such thing as 'the popular vote' in that race, right?

        Arik, calm down. Of course there is such a thing, and Trump lost it. Burns him to no end, just as the diminutive size of his Johnson, but that is neither here nor there. Loss of the popular vote means the President does not have a "mandate", yes, he is president, but the majority of people do not support him, nor his policies, nor his executive orders, so even though the might have rejected the alternative, and voted for the "joke" candidate, that does not mean that he has the authority to rule. And given how much Congress has paid attention to his budget, no such authority exists. Trump is my president, he is my joke president. Not really a president. A New York Real Estate scammer, who accidentally became president. An old man too old to grab women who thinks that being president will help with that. A man with daddy issues, who thinks, that finally, now that he is president, he will be good enough for the old man, and his Dad might give him back his switchblade. Pathetic. Looserer.

      • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday May 08 2017, @03:20PM (8 children)

        by tangomargarine (667) on Monday May 08 2017, @03:20PM (#506385)

        You realize there is no such thing as 'the popular vote' in that race, right?

        Really don't see what point you're trying to make here.

        but the large majority of the country repudiated her

        If you count everybody who didn't vote for her as "repudiating" her, sort of, but that's clearly crazy. An abstention is an abstention; you can't accurately read anything more into it without talking to specific voters. And 51.8% of voters is not a "large majority."

        --
        "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
        • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday May 08 2017, @06:48PM (7 children)

          by Arik (4543) on Monday May 08 2017, @06:48PM (#506493) Journal
          "Really don't see what point you're trying to make here."

          There is no popular vote. That's not how Presidents are elected in the US. This is really basic grade-school civics stuff it shouldn't be hard to understand. The vote tally was 304-227 in favor of Trump. This 'popular vote' is a fiction that our establishment media decided some years ago they preferred to pay attention to instead, but it's just that, a fiction, it doesn't mean anything.

          "If you count everybody who didn't vote for her as "repudiating" her, sort of, but that's clearly crazy."

          Is it? The media and all the establishment political figures came out for months putting this guy down at every opportunity, ridiculing him, and every time they did it his support increased. Don't pretend that the Bernie voters (rightly!) incensed at the corrupt DNC machine didn't choose to stay home or vote Green knowing full well this could put Trump in there and deciding it was worth the risk because Clinton really is that awful.

          Trump's pretty awful but as we've seen with both parties united against him he can't get much done. Clinton would have been able to ram her agenda through Congress on the fast track instead.
          --
          If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
          • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday May 08 2017, @07:05PM (6 children)

            by tangomargarine (667) on Monday May 08 2017, @07:05PM (#506505)

            There is no popular vote. That's not how Presidents are elected in the US. This is really basic grade-school civics stuff it shouldn't be hard to understand. The vote tally was 304-227 in favor of Trump. This 'popular vote' is a fiction that our establishment media decided some years ago they preferred to pay attention to instead, but it's just that, a fiction, it doesn't mean anything.

            The popular vote isn't what (directly) elects the president, no, but it still takes place. They tally the popular vote by district then run it through the electoral college layer.

            Technically there's no rule in place that electors *have* to vote according to the state popular vote, but in practice that's what everybody does. So the "fiction" is really a direct correlation. In a somewhat similar fashion, technically the British Monarch has the power to refuse to sign any bill Parliament passes. Of course, this hasn't happened since the 1600s and there would be a huge panic if she actually did. So do you consider Britain a monarchy or a representative government?

            Is it? The media and all the establishment political figures came out for months putting this guy down...

            Oh, so you switched from hard vote totals to general public feelings mid-paragraph. That's why I was confused.

            Trump's pretty awful but as we've seen with both parties united against him he can't get much done. Clinton would have been able to ram her agenda through Congress on the fast track instead.

            Yeah, that's what I was hoping really hard would happen before the election.

            --
            "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
            • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday May 08 2017, @08:01PM (4 children)

              by Arik (4543) on Monday May 08 2017, @08:01PM (#506536) Journal
              "The popular vote isn't what (directly) elects the president, no, but it still takes place. They tally the popular vote by district then run it through the electoral college layer."

              What you're calling the popular vote is not a vote for President, but a vote for electors. It seems you do understand how it works, why do you speak as if it was an entirely different thing?

              "Oh, so you switched from hard vote totals to general public feelings mid-paragraph. That's why I was confused."

              Sorry if I confused you, but both are important.

              "Yeah, that's what I was hoping really hard would happen before the election."

              That Clintons agenda would go through smoothly?

              --
              If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
              • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday May 08 2017, @08:16PM (3 children)

                by tangomargarine (667) on Monday May 08 2017, @08:16PM (#506543)

                What you're calling the popular vote is not a vote for President, but a vote for electors.

                Well then they should put the electors on the ballot instead of the president's name :P

                It seems you do understand how it works, why do you speak as if it was an entirely different thing?

                I'm not; you're the one who said the popular vote doesn't exist. I'm saying the popular vote is more or less another way of looking at the electoral vote. The electoral college is basically a less-accurate way of doing a popular vote anyway... (yes I know there's other reasons for it but still)

                That Clintons agenda would go through smoothly?

                That Trump would be fought by everyone on all the crazy stuff he tries to do.

                --
                "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
                • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday May 08 2017, @09:34PM (2 children)

                  by Arik (4543) on Monday May 08 2017, @09:34PM (#506605) Journal
                  "Well then they should put the electors on the ballot instead of the president's name :P"

                  They do. That makes me wonder if you didn't vote or just didn't read your ballot.

                  "That Trump would be fought by everyone on all the crazy stuff he tries to do."

                  Unfortunately even the relatively sensible things he wants to do generate the same opposition - even moreso, actually. But yes, it's heartening to see all these folks that have worshipped at the altar of unlimited presidential power for more than a decade suddenly discover the idea of limited powers, at least in some context.
                  --
                  If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
                  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday May 08 2017, @09:43PM (1 child)

                    by tangomargarine (667) on Monday May 08 2017, @09:43PM (#506609)

                    Well then they should put the electors on the ballot instead of the president's name :P

                    They do. That makes me wonder if you didn't vote or just didn't read your ballot.

                    This [guim.co.uk] is what the ballots look like in my state. From an image search [google.com] it looks like we're a bit atypical (but hardly unique) in that regard. But that's no surprise; we're stupid about a lot of stuff politically here.

                    --
                    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
                    • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday May 08 2017, @10:19PM

                      by Arik (4543) on Monday May 08 2017, @10:19PM (#506626) Journal
                      That is remarkably uninformative.

                      I'm not from SD but I'm used to ballots that look very much like this one: https://sdsos.gov/elections-voting/upcoming-elections/general-information/2016-Presidential-Ballot-Access_clip_image001.jpg
                      --
                      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
            • (Score: 2) by Arik on Monday May 08 2017, @09:31PM

              by Arik (4543) on Monday May 08 2017, @09:31PM (#506601) Journal
              "technically the British Monarch has the power to refuse to sign any bill Parliament passes. Of course, this hasn't happened since the 1600s and there would be a huge panic if she actually did. So do you consider Britain a monarchy or a representative government?"

              I actually agree that the situations are similar. There is a divergence between legal fact and popular understanding and it's strengthened by custom that's contrary to law. It's made even muddier in the UK by the lack of a written Constitution, but it does seem that, in fact, the UK is still a Monarchy, albeit one where the Monarch is unlikely to exercise power out of fear that if she did it might suddenly cease to be a Monarchy. That's not such a long ways off from the philosophy of the USA founders, limited government, checks and balances, it's all coming out of the same common traditions.
              --
              If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @12:34PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @12:34PM (#506851)

        supposing that the electoral college voted in a loose cannon for the purpose of shaking up the current political structure is an intricate psychothriller.

        look at it differently, climate science doesn't tell us exactly what a radical shift in temp will do to the planet, some folks argue that Los Angeles will be underwater in 6 months, some argue that plants will be happier with more heat and co2. the scientists aargue specifically that we can't know the result of such a large system shifting radically in such a short time, and that small, incremental changes are more predictable just by virtue of smaller and fewer factors.

        if 400-odd people really did think they could predict the result of an orthoganal change in direction of our political infrastructure, they are incredibly irresponsible, at best, and thrilling psychos at worst