2571: The Long Drive

[Andrea_Allan]

with Kaytlin Bailey and Carrie Gravenson – Keith’s personal organizer; tour problems and face punches; Martin Shkreli, Harvard, and ignorant and hateful free speech; KATG Polls

Guests:
Carrie Gravenson


Kaytlin Bailey



Share this episode: Twitter, Facebook & email

Get the show: on iTunes, on Stitcher and RSS feed

[Jo_Culprit]

Regarding the discussion of free speech

Dan Carlin's Common Sense podcast just had a episode recently that I think goes over the suppression of hate speech vs. free speech argument pretty well, though his opinion is similar to Kaitlyns
Common Sense 313 ? Get Me A Glass of Water

Hearing the discussion between Chemda, Kaitlyn and Carrie, I can see both sides but it's still pretty messy.
Free speech would argue that you should boycott the institutions giving the Shkreli / the Iranian president a platform then protest and argue against their ideas specifically rather than their opportunity to express those ideas. Often I feel like the fascist ideas that have been crawling out of the woodwork recently have festered in small communities and not been tested in the broader market place of ideas. I would worry that if you don't let those people express their bullshit so they can be targeted and their ideas criticized they would otherwise fester and grow in their little communities.
On the other hand, we're all so bombarded with information and misinformation in this age if you let these people have opportunities to speak even when even it starts at just baseline ridiculous concepts then I would be worried that there would be new groups of people exposed to these ideas while also not comprehending the criticism raining down on those ideas from the rest of the public.

Absolute free speech requires the people to perceive all the information in the market of ideas and come to rational conclusions, while the suppression of hate speech argument requires a fair group judgement that's ultimately subjective on where the boundary between acceptable ideas and unacceptable ideas to be debated is.

it's tough I'm not going to be able to vote on this poll

I don't agree with the 'Just punch a nazi' sentiment because there's definately people that feel that any white person that supports Trump is a nazi. Meanwhile that person is probably just a product of the Fox news bubble they live in. While Keith and Chemda could be trusted to be Nazi detectors I don't think you could trust everyone to be as accurate and not prejudiced.

[panicBoy]

Fantastic episode. Love when everyone gets into the guts of political discourse.

I have no problem when shitweasels like Shkreli or Yiannopolous get cancelled/punched/run over. I also understand the need for even the worst to have their freedom of speech. HOWEVER, these idiots have an amazing range of outlets to talk their brand of shit. It's not 1960 anymore; we have a thousand TV networks and the INTERNET. How did Harvard become the ONLY venue for A-List fuckheads to spout their garbage?

It's not censorship when protests shut these shitshows down. The general populace doesn't have that kind of power. Censorship, as I believe most of us understand it, involves government intervention to curb speech under threat of imprisonment or worse, and it's happening, all over the world, right now.

Third-world nations have become de-facto laboratories for wealthier nations to experiment with more extreme forms of "governance." Recent history is replete with examples of people being "disappeared" by fascist regimes for the crimes of being journalists and critics. So just because it hasn't happened "here," doesn't mean they don't have the manuals and tools. They just haven't used them, or at least not on any kind of large scale. Yet.

When a university, a place of higher learning, has a speaker like Milo or Martin in to do stand-up (cuz let's face it, it's fucking stand-up for assholes), it grants LEGITIMACY to their ideas. Not universally accepted legitimacy, by any measure, but certainly more legitimacy AND NOTORIETY than before. Who needs that? What are we supposed to learn? That greed is good? That money means relative protection from the law? That some people are better than others based on gender or melanin content or income or any number of other bullshit reasons?

We need more than ever to marginalize these FASCISTS. And yeah, if you see one, THEY NEED PUNCHING. It's time.

[jbliss]

Individuals do. And, when they do, they should do some combination of:

- don't attend the event
- contact the University with displeasure about the event
- peacefully protest IRL and/or online
- etc

During the Milo protest, people were committing crimes. Not OK.

I disagree with Milo on just about everything and the reason I know that is because I've listened to him speak and read what he has written. It seemed clear to me that most people on mic today have not done so and, therefore, were just assuming he's Steve Bannon (he's not).

1000 people who are not very familiar with KATG decide you represent hateful stupidity and get together to throw bricks through Starbucks windows until you agree to stop podcasting. Not OK.

Listen to/read Milo. Even if you disagree with him. Then, at least, you'll know what you're protesting.

[panicBoy]

Wow. How can I possibly compete with someone who actually reads?

Your premise is dumb.

[jbliss]

Originally Posted by panicBoy

Your premise is dumb.

Super-difficult to argue with that. I guess I could write, "I disagree?"

Would you care to write something to further the discussion?

[The Girl]

I wasn't saying to burn all his books (though I think that would be great).

I was criticizing places of "higher education" hiring someone who promotes dumb ideas.

I'm not even saying we should outlaw it.

I'm saying shame on them for paying and legitimizing this thought further.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by Apia

Freedom of speech has its end. Would you let somebody speak who says all Muslims should die for example?

we let someone on KATG who says all men should die.

[panicBoy]

Yeah, but she's a sweetie.

[jbliss]

Originally Posted by The Girl

I wasn't saying to burn all his books (though I think that would be great).

I was criticizing places of "higher education" hiring someone who promotes dumb ideas.

I'm not even saying we should outlaw it.

I'm saying shame on them for paying and legitimizing this thought further.

Agreed. However: if you were an undergrad, how annoyed / bored would you be if the university spent all of your money bringing in speakers where:

- you agree with everything they say
- you've heard other people say almost everything they say

I think that would be terrible. There has to be a happy medium between that and inviting The Klan to come speak. If Milo's too much for you, listen to conservative David Frum talk about why he thinks Trump is so dangerous and what we should do about it: David Frum encourages focus for those fearful of the Trump administration.

I would be very happy to go listen to him on campus even though I might disagree with 60% of the stuff he talks about.