I love a good summer storm.

Something similar happened at my cousin's wedding. The ceremony was to be held in a little clearing rather high up in the Canadian Rockies, with a splendid vista as backdrop. When the hour struck for the ceremony to begin, a torrential downpour began, the likes of which we dwellers on the plains had rarely experienced. Of course, there was nowhere to hide, so they simply went through with the ceremony as best they could.

But the good news is that there seems to have been nothing of the omen about it: 15 years on, they are going strong.

Ever read that favorite of the 1960s and the New Left, the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, on his idea of "discriminating tolerance"?

Part of this struggle is the fight against an ideology of tolerance which, in reality, favors and fortifies the conservation of the status quo of inequality and discrimination. For this struggle, I proposed the practice of discriminating tolerance. To be sure, this practice already presupposes the radical goal which it seeks to achieve. I committed this petitio principii in order to combat the pernicious ideology that tolerance is already institutionalized in this society. The tolerance which is the life element, the token of a free society, will never be the gift of the powers that be; it can, under the prevailing conditions of tyranny by the majority, only be won in the sustained effort of radical minorities, willing to break this tyranny and to work for the emergence of a free and sovereign majority - minorities intolerant, militantly intolerant and disobedient to the rules of behavior which tolerate destruction and suppression.

"I get the impression that they don't know much beyond contemporary polemics."

Which is one of the main reasons we home school.

Right. And one of the most worrisome things to me is their complete ignorance of what Communism in the USSR (autocorrect did not recognize that) was like. They seem to think that the USA and the Russians were about equally evil during the Cold War, and that we were completely overreacting to the threat. Russians only bad act was committed during the 2016 election.

AMDG

I just finished Scruton's The Face of God and it is marvelous. The Soul of the World is next.

While on the surface I agree that freedom of speech should not be repressed, it does seem that people in charge of these places (Berkeley, Portland OR, etc) are wanting to keep violent episodes from occurring either on campuses, or in cities. Clashes between the far left crazies and far right crazies. What is another good option? Why have your police force knowingly in the middle of this? And on another note, people like Ann Coulter and Milo whatever his name is don't really need to be heard. If the point of someone's speech is to rile up a crowd against others, is it protected by the first amendment?

"And on another note, people like Ann Coulter and Milo whatever his name is don't really need to be heard. If the point of someone's speech is to rile up a crowd against others, is it protected by the first amendment?"

You'd have to define "against others."

Where would we go, Robert?

AMDG

I need Art Deco to set me straight. Where, oh where is he when you need him? Just like the elusive Lowe's employee.....

He would also know where we should go, Janet! Wait a second, we?

Well, one option is for the university to teach students what civil discourse is like even when you strongly disagree with the position of the speaker.

I, for instance, think it was not a very helpful thing for the students to walk out on Pence at ND. They missed the best talk of the day, which was after Pence.

The best response to Pence's talk would be to write a response and post it or publish it. Same with Coulter (although I find her to be almost intolerable).

If the intention of the talk is to incite, I think that would be problematic. I don't know what the KKK at Skokie was saying. If it was "kill the Jews," I think that should be stopped. If it was "deport the Jews," I'm not so sure. And I'm 1000% against what the KKK stands for.

I'm pretty sure it's illegal to directly incite violence. So if that was what was meant by, for instance, "to rile up a crowd against others", it would be in keeping with free speech principles to shut down a speaker. But people like Coulter and Milo Whatever aren't doing that. They're just being obnoxious, which riles up the people they're making fun of. If you say they shouldn't be allowed to speak, then neither should, for instance, Bill Maher, and any number of abrasive personalities on the left.

The exact same principle of avoiding potential violence was given as a reason for not allowing civil rights demonstrations. "You can't have your civil rights demonstration because the Klan might attack you" is exactly the same logic as "You can't have your parade because leftists may attack you."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler%27s_veto

Either way, walking out on Pence is at worst bad manners, and doesn't really touch on the free speech question. It's when they shout down and physically intimidate or attack a speaker that university admins should step in.

This is interesting re hate speech and the law:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/30/hate-speech-is-not-protected-by-the-first-amendment-oregon-mayor-says-hes-wrong/

Heh.

I find lately that I feel more pity than envy when I contemplate young people. There's such a long road ahead for them. I even fear for them a little--there's such a strong chance for varieties of grief and pain that they can't foresee. Nevertheless, life is good.

*

From a piece about Hogarth in the April issue of The New Criterion:
"And one of the most worrisome things to me is their complete ignorance of what Communism in the USSR (autocorrect did not recognize that) was like. They seem to think that the USA and the Russians were about equally evil during the Cold War, and that we were completely overreacting to the threat."

Yes, it's mind-boggling. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure people in Australia, in general, thought the USSR was evil incarnate.

What did happen to Art?

Discussing recent attacks on speech from the point of view of traditional American free-speech ideals and laws is a little afield from the main point I was trying to make in this post. It's not that campus leftists and others are violating the principle, but that they are rejecting it. They reject the old "disagree with what you say but will defend your right to say it" idea. For them it's "disagree with what you say and deny your right to say it." Or, as Rod Dreher (and others) have put it, it's the old Catholic idea that "error has no rights."

It could be the beginning of a big change if people who think like this move into positions of power over the next few decades.

But that's not my point. There's a difference between breaking the rules and changing the rules. Whatever off-the-wall stuff Trump himself may spout from time to time, there is no constituency on the right for a policy of prohibiting political speech on the grounds of its content. There just isn't.

But don't you think the danger is the same? You are stating that it is a dangerous precedent for the progressives to limit free speech of the right. The press feels under attack by the White House, and other members of the GOP. Didn't a candidate in Montana "body slam" a member of the press up there because he didn't like a question? Then the next day he won the election.

I'm not saying I disagree with your concerns about progressives, however, I feel that it is more troubling for the press to be fearful. It began with trump but is spreading to others on the right.

These two points are more similar than dissimilar.

"I frequently feel more than anxious, Louise. Downright despairing. But I know that's not what God wants."

Right, but I think your feelings are most understandable. And it must be worse for you than me, because, let's face it, I didn't know the kind of society that you or my parents knew.

I quite like Joseph Shaw's blog, and this one is about protecting people from bad ideas. I thought people here might be interested.

http://www.lmschairman.org/2017/05/protecting-people-against-bad-ideas.html#more

Also, it's more like brainwashing, creating an internal self-censorship.

Interesting piece, Louise. I think the last sentence is on target.

That bit about the French was the main reason I thought the quote funny enough to post.

The book does look promising. I note with amusement that Stephen Clarke lives in Paris according to that Amazon bio.

1000 Years of Annoying the French is highly entertaining for the first couple of hundred pages. Then there are pages and pages about brothel life in 19th-century Paris and I got bored and gave up.

First of all, the question is not whether apples are worse than oranges or if they are they same. The question is, how bad are apples and how bad are oranges. What is the danger?

Which raises a problem. People tend to think something is worse if their own ox is the one being gored. So, so-called progressives are going to think that there is a real, serious, dangerous threat of thuggery from the right and the so-called conservatives are going to think the liberal shaming is rilly, rilly bad and that it will lead to 1984. I think the progressives need to look at the serious problems on their side and the conservatives on their side. And they need to work hard to renounce them, because they are both poison. No body on the other side is going to listen to our warnings.

And we've got to stop with the "tu quoque" arguments.

One of the problems with conservatives is that they don't have a soft, soothing NPR to pour out anecdote after anecdote to show how heartless The Other Side is. Conservatives are good with principles and abstract arguments, but not with a manifest sensitivity to the real physical and psychology effect on real people of some of the policies they promote. I say "manifest" because we are talking about the public image, not how they act privately; their go to public stance is not to describe the real situation of others, especially the poor and oppressed.

What is the liberal weakness? Perhaps the inability to step back and look at the situations of suffering objectively. "We've got to do something about it now," even if the solution is unjust in some way that they don't recognize or is in the long run counterproductive. Abortion is a good example of this. Legal abortion is both unjust and detrimental to the people it claims to help and to society.

Robert Gotcher has become the new Art Deco, except he doesn't attack and I seem to agree with him most of the time!

I agree with Robert overall. But it's not really what my remarks in the post are about. Tu quoque doesn't even bother me that much if the two things are comparable.

I have to make sure my point is clear, just because that's the way I am: my point about the left and free speech is not that the left is on some absolute scale worse. It's not even primarily that what they are doing is bad. It's that they are abandoning the Enlightenment-utilitarian principles regarding speech and ideas. They're returning to a pre-Enlightenment view that some ideas are simply not permissible. This is a significant development. My point is less about whether it's right or wrong than that it's a big deal, a big shift in thinking.

I can even think of some traditionalist Catholics who would agree with the new left thinking in principle, who might say, "well, they're recognizing the folly of classical liberalism's attempt to be neutral about ideas, good for them."

That's also the point I was trying to make to Stu: that whatever Trump is doing is not the same thing. It's not that I'm saying apples are better than oranges. I'm saying something specifically about apples, to which oranges are irrelevant.

It's hard to jettison something you never thought about.

One of the problems with conservatives is that they don't have a soft, soothing NPR to pour out anecdote after anecdote to show how heartless The Other Side is.

I've thought this a million times. I listen to Public Radio a lot because around here you have a choice between that and static--or saying the rosary which is an increasingly frequent option. I'm always wondering why conservatives have to sound like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

I think the progressives need to look at the serious problems on their side and the conservatives on their side.

This is a great idea. I think I'll campaign for a national "Clean Your Own House" month on social media.

Stu, I can't imagine anyone less like Art that Robert.

AMDG

It's almost funny at this point. I mean the recommendation that each side look at their own problems. They should, obviously, but I think that's a lost cause. My hope or at least wish now is that each side would quit trying to impose its will on the other via the national government. That might avert the civil war or national breakup.

I do think though that some of the people on the alt-right have made the same decision to dump our traditional principles

I would hope it would be something everybody could live with, if it were implemented. I think the system could accommodate it. But it requires people in California and Alabama each to be willing to allow the other to run things in ways that they consider unacceptable.