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Is It Okay To Disinvite A Communist From A Free Speech Symposium? (With Poll, Too!) (1 Viewer)

Is it okay?

  • Yes

    Votes: 8 26.7%

  • No

    Votes: 22 73.3%
  • Total voters
    30
Since I have no context as to what you are referring, I will simply say yes. If you are the host of some gathering, you have every right to invite whomever you'd like. One does have to wonder why you'd invite a communist in the first place and why you later changed your mind. 

 
I love these polls asking questions operating in a vacuum.

Yes, I guess, one should be able to invite or disinvite anyone they want to a free speech lecture. My answer might change depending on specifics of the situation or hypothetical.  

 
It is just as okay to un-invite a Communist as it is to un-invite a conservative. Or a religious zealot. Or an atheist. Or a holocaust denier. Or somebody who talks non-stop about conspiracy theories. Or...

Which is to say that it is well within the rights of the event's organizer to invite, not invite, or un-invite whoever they so choose, but that it does seem to erode the credibility of an event that is ostensibly about freedom of ####### speech.

 
Sure.  No community, not even a state subsidized community has to open up a public forum to everyone.  We instinctively know this.  Nobody is scandalized that college speaker tours don't book NAMBLA advocates.  Lots of conservative and liberal speakers are booked for these events every year.  When Milo what'shisname is uninvited, its because his speech is so vile and offensive that it gets the equivalent reaction as a NAMBLA advocate.  Which, in a healthy individual, would cause some self-reflection. 

 
By the way, this was a light-hearted post along the lines of "Is it okay to punch a Nazi?" the inference being a Nazi would punch you if it had a chance, just as a communist would ban you from speaking freely if he had a chance. It was also a question William F. Buckley posed to Yale in the early '60s. He tried to get a communist speaker un-invited from speaking at Yale under the pretense that said speaker would, uh, un-invite you if they had the chance.  

 
Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
Sure.  No community, not even a state subsidized community has to open up a public forum to everyone.  We instinctively know this.  Nobody is scandalized that college speaker tours don't book NAMBLA advocates.  Lots of conservative and liberal speakers are booked for these events every year.  When Milo what'shisname is uninvited, its because his speech is so vile and offensive that it gets the equivalent reaction as a NAMBLA advocate.  Which, in a healthy individual, would cause some self-reflection. 
Click to expand...
Milo = NAMBLA? 

Good work, friend.  

 
Yes.  Free speech does not mean that you need to invite anyone to speak, and likewise you could dis-invite them.  Its real intent is to prevent people from being prosecuted for speaking out against the government. 

 
Dickies said:
Yes.  Free speech does not mean that you need to invite anyone to speak, and likewise you could dis-invite them.  Its real intent is to prevent people from being prosecuted for speaking out against the government. 
Click to expand...
I don't think that's necessarily so. It's state action and government when we think about the concept of censorship. Free speech is a broader concept than mere prior restraint or government action. Free speech means "free" and "speech." That the two have become synonymous and political muddies our thinking, I think.  

eta* Thanks for the response, though, Dickies. I just want to get this going. 

 
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What I really want to ask is: At what point do we tolerate that which would undermine our ideals to have a direct impact -- a direct voice -- in our pluralistic democratic republic. 

 
rockaction said:
I don't think that's necessarily so. It's state action and government when we think about the concept of censorship. Free speech is a broader concept than mere prior restraint or government action. Free speech means "free" and "speech." That the two have become synonymous and political muddies our thinking, I think.  
Click to expand...
I realize it goes beyond that, but if someone comes to my house and starts lecturing me (like Jehovahs Witnesses) I can tell them to get the hell out.  If they want to go stand on the sidewalk and talk then by all means do it.  

I will compare this to the Coulter/UCB incident.  UCB doesn't have to allow anyone to speak in their lecture halls, but if she wants to grab a megaphone and speak on the quad then go for it.  If I go to UCB and demand they allow me to use their lecture hall to give a speech they would say "Go #### yourself, who are you?"

 
Dickies said:
I realize it goes beyond that, but if someone comes to my house and starts lecturing me (like Jehovahs Witnesses) I can tell them to get the hell out.  If they want to go stand on the sidewalk and talk then by all means do it.  

I will compare this to the Coulter/UCB incident.  UCB doesn't have to allow anyone to speak in their lecture halls, but if she wants to grab a megaphone and speak on the quad then go for it.  If I go to UCB and demand they allow me to use their lecture hall to give a speech they would say "Go #### yourself, who are you?"
Click to expand...
True. I think I should have specified that it was a public space, that it was government-approved like a gov't program at a senior center, that all had been welcome, etc. 

I was trying to get past the assumptions, but apparently should have done so in the OP. Thanks, man.  

 
Ramsay Hunt Experience said:
Sure.  No community, not even a state subsidized community has to open up a public forum to everyone.  We instinctively know this.  Nobody is scandalized that college speaker tours don't book NAMBLA advocates.  Lots of conservative and liberal speakers are booked for these events every year.  When Milo what'shisname is uninvited, its because his speech is so vile and offensive that it gets the equivalent reaction as a NAMBLA advocate.  Which, in a healthy individual, would cause some self-reflection. 
Click to expand...
LOL

 
So new assumptions: 

It's a government building

It's a public event

That government is a liberal, democratic government that enshrines something similar to our First Amendment and its interpretation

This symposium is entitled "The Virtue Of Free Speech: All invited to speak and be heard!"

 
rockaction said:
So new assumptions: 

It's a government building

It's a public event

That government is a liberal, democratic government that enshrines something similar to our First Amendment and its interpretation

This symposium is entitled "The Virtue Of Free Speech: All invited to speak and be heard!"
Click to expand...
In this case I would change my answer to "No"

 
Free speech means having your preferred speech at your event no?

Except if publicly funded then you get into that can't discriminate equality bull####.  

 
Centaur: Right.. uh, are we going to discuss my medical qualifications..? Boss: The rest of the interview will be Centaur questions. Do you have sex with horses, or with human women? Centaur: Uh.. neither. I'm really only attracted to other Centaurs. Boss: Okay. What if were a horse with a mask of a woman on it? Centaur: No. I mean, would you have sex with a monkey if it had a mask on? Boss: This interview is not about me. What if you saw a horse, but it was standing so that its head was in a barn, or something. Would you, maybe, be attracted to that horse's rear end? Centaur: Uh.. I don't.. where is the head, exactly? Boss: It's in the barn.. or behind a door, or a vase, or something.. so you can't see it. Centaur: Uh.. I might be attracted to it - briefly. Boss: Okay. So, let's say, hypothetically, that you could have sex with the back end.. and it's guranteed to be the greatest sex you ever had.. but you'd never know if it was as horse or as Centaur? Centaur: Hmm.. you know, that's pretty intriguing.. uh.. if I'd really never know, I guess I would. Boss: It was a horse. Centaur: Oh, come on! Boss: It was a horse. Deal with it. 
 

 
rockaction said:
Milo = NAMBLA?
Click to expand...
That's pretty much literally why he was uninvited from speaking at CPAC, isn't it?

I mean, NAMBLA supports both pedophilia and pederasty while Milo was promoting only pederasty. So I guess, technically, they're a bit different...

 
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A free speech forum. Isn't the whole purpose to allow differing views to speak? Kind of ironic to disinvite based on them being not very bright and ignorant of economics and history.

 
was there pie?  it's really a lot more insulting if there was going to be pie at the symposium and then they uninvited someone that was expecting pie.

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
That's pretty much literally why he was uninvited from speaking at CPAC, isn't it?

I mean, NAMBLA supports both pedophilia and pederasty while Milo was promoting only pederasty. So I guess, technically, they're a bit different...
Click to expand...
Yeah. Ramsay and I wrote that months before the revelations about his comments. That's why I tagged him. Just a good call, in a way, even though he was just making a comparison about the odiousness of each.

 
rockaction said:
Yeah. Ramsay and I wrote that months before the revelations about his comments. That's why I tagged him. Just a good call, in a way, even though he was just making a comparison about the odiousness of each.
Click to expand...
Oh, yeah, I didn't notice the date.

 
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