On March 12 2025 10:59 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2025 09:10 Introvert wrote:On March 12 2025 08:45 BlackJack wrote:
Flip the script and let’s pretend that the US passed a law or constitutional amendment giving Trumps Supreme Court authority to demand posts be deleted and users be banned. Let’s imagine John Robert’s first order of business is to demand Nazgûl ban Gorsameth and arrest any TL.net representatives in the US if they fail to do so because Gorsameth is a danger to the union.
Does anyone believe Gorsameth would be saying “This has nothing to do with freedom of speech. This has to do with Nazgûl failing to comply with lawful court orders to ban me.”
Does anyone think we’d have posts like Nazgûl needs to understand that Dutch interpretation of freedom of speech doesn’t apply universally?
Right… I’m sure there would be no mention of fascism… or freedom of speech…
I haven't looked into this guy's case in particular but since we are posting about laws now and their intersection with free speech I would point out that the power to deport someone is quite strong. If this guy was *merely* saying Israel was a genocidal state than I would wish he was never allowed here but would probably be against deporting him. Again though, don't know what he actually did. Students who do break the law, by either taking over buildings or harassing Jewish students should probably be deported though. I'm not a 60s leftist. But you are right, there is a huge double standard here. I won't weep if any of these people are deported the only reason I worry precisely because the shoe is often on the other foot. A lesson many on the left are incapable of learning. I think it must be a core, if unstated and subliminal, part of that worldview.
It’s not really a matter of principle if the worry is ‘if the shoe is on the other foot’ though.
Although, the rest of your post reads otherwise, but plenty do think like that.
On harassment, if that happened, then sure. I personally think anti-abortion folks have all the right in the world to protest, outside of harassing women in and around abortion clinics. That’s my personal line there.
If bystanding Jewish students were targeted, including perhaps also those who aren’t even pro-Israel, then yeah. Not cool. To put it mildly. I dislike the state of Israel’s actions in certain domains pretty intensely myself, but for one, this is a shitty thing to do. Two, opponents of Israeli policy have to fight to separate that from accusations of anti-Semitism, all the time. If protestors are actively behaving in a way that conjoins them again, it makes it that much harder for the likes of myself. So fuck that.
It’s my understanding the wheels were already turning, at least in terms of college disciplinary proceedings, and perhaps legal ones (unsure on that), already. I did a bit of scanning, I haven’t deep-dived.
It’s really the difference between that process occurring, and perhaps criminal transgressions being found, and this individual being deported, versus someone in the State department unilaterally demanding they be deported. For whatever reason that may be, and I think many have probably accurately figured that out via speculation, although lack any smoking gun of evidence in that regard.
I’m unsure what the double standard here really is. It’s oft-invoked, and I think oft-wrongly. Not always, but often.
Are there really that many direct left analogues from the past few years for what we’re seeing in the first few
months with Trump?
I’d argue not really. In spirit perhaps, but not from individuals with comparable power.
I’ll grant the Hunter Biden suppression/interference in that domain, incidentally I was personally against that, and vocalised it at the time.
But I would implore those on the centre thru right, yanno what I think some on the left got some of these questions wrong. Some, malicious but the majority are at least
trying to do right, even if misjudged. For some elusive greater good or whatever.
Don’t cut your collective noses off to spite us lefties, if these are things you care about. Forget about us entirely, and look at the Orange King and what he’s getting up to, and judge according to your own sensibilities. There’s not even the vaguest pretence that he’s behaving for some greater good or collective principle.
Immaterial in actuality, but unbelievably instructive of this regime, removing outlets from the intimate press corps (can’t remember the actual name) because they didn’t go with ‘Gulf of America’.
It’s so thin-skinned, petty and pointlessly vindictive, so contemptuous of the whole role of the Fourth Estate, and over something so asinine. The fuck is he going to do with any actual serious threat to him and his power?
I’ll also add that if Biden had renamed it something ‘woke’ and wrote an Executive Order to that effect. And got salty with the press for not playing ball, people would have lambasted him.
And they should 
EPT
