Whatever happened to Left Liberalism?

Professor Reed probably incurred some cost to reserve the auditorium for his speech, or if it was at no cost as an invited guest speaker, then he at minimum had a investment of his time and effort to prepare for the speech. The campus speech was something Reed could choose to do in his free time.

Kaepernick was being paid to be at the stadium, under contract. "Football" is his job and sports is an entertainment venue from the National Anthem to the end of the game. Personally, I don't care if he kneels if the team coach and NFL are okay with it. (I'm not a football fan, so I really don't care. lol) They are signing his paycheck though, and if they want all players to stand, or they want all players to kneel, then they get to set those rules as employee requirements.

In my free time, I can do what I wish, and exercise my free speech all I wish. When I get to the office on the days and times my boss wants to pay me to be there to work on his behalf, then I do what my boss pays me to do, not what I want to do.

 

Which demo rats have been trying to cancel since the day it was passed, and you overlook the fact that money is ultimately fungible which is to say that tax dollars given to PP ultimately amounts to more money for abortions no matter what sort of accounting tricks you use to hide the obvious.

 

I for one am not "assigning blame" in a partisan way, at least in this thread. ( )

The thread topic is about the distinction between the Classic Liberals and the Progressives, who are in a rather heated battle at the moment over Cancel Culture.

There is considerable talk about this issue right now in the left wing among academics, particularly on college campuses. The liberal professors thought it was "kind of cute" when campus Marxists were getting conservatives like Ben Shapiro or Milo Yiannopoulos canceled from speaking on campus. They figured these students would graduate and grow into more reasonable adults after entering the real world. However, when the campus Marxists started calling liberal professors "racists" and "conservatives", accusing them of "hate speech" and demanding that they quit their jobs, it became a real issue for liberals.

The most famous case that I know of where the Cultural Marxists started causing problems for the Classical Liberals was Brett Weinstein. Weinstein and his wife resigned, and sued Evergreen State College for a settlement.

Just like the original poster here, Weinstein is also getting a group of moderate and reasonable voices to counter the Far Left Progressive movement's power play and ensure that free speech survives in America.

This isn't a conservative issue, though most conservatives would be more than happy to ally with the classic liberals on this topic.

These students who have now graduated, did not "grow up" after college. Cancel Culture is starting to happen in corporations and at major publishers, like the New York Times.

If I'm not mistaken, this is the main topic for the thread, as described and defined by Weinstein:

 

It still exists in the Green Party. The DNC has been ruined by Soros.

 

The same can be said about the right though the far-right as basically silence the moderates and center-right for years now.

it's because the extremists in both sides are very vocal and people think that they make up the majority but they're really just very very loud minorities

 

I agree that both the left and right are trying to stifle expression. In the run up to the second Gulf War, large groups of conservative broadcasters forbad the broadcasting of Saving Private Ryan for example. It made war look less romantic they thought.
But this is the time to maximize all political speech and Facebook and Twitter deciding what people should hear is downright scary to me.
The implication is paternalistic in that what is being said is that people need to be protected from bad speech because they are incapable of making discriminating decisions on their own.
Facebook and Twitter are of course privately run companies and have this right to censor but they are so huge that they are close to monopolies.
Still it seems like their bottom line should be profits but confusingly it is not. And yes I wonder if there is political pressure or threats coming from somewhere.

 

Getting back to a point where voters are more involved in civics than just believing, "My side has to win is everything," is the challenge. As someone analogized on another thread, today's politics have been marginalized to a football game mentality, where one's jersey color is the only important thing. You mentioned on the same thread that Americans don't really like to think very hard. Now, there is a challenge!

How do you motivate people to "think more", or to think beyond the next football game every four years, much less pay attention to the "half-time show" (the mid-term elections)? How to stop the political pendulum from swinging far-left and far-right, where half the people feel like victors and the other half feel oppressed, until the pendulum swings for/against the other half? I have to believe that there is a center majority which would like the pendulum to make less noticeable swings, and we get out of "football game" mode.

I've personally never understood the American fascination with football. If every single football team wore black and white instead of unique team "colors" and logos (say they flip a coin and one team wore black shirts and white pants and the other wore white shirts and black pants so they could tell which team is which), how interested would people actually be in "their team" winning versus just watching a good competitive game? Every game would be just like the next game. It's about the logos, colors and branding right?

What if we could stop having "Party" primaries? Every person who wants to run for an office just runs in one huge primary and people vote for the person with the best ideas, not specifically knowing their party. Progressives, communists, marxists, socialists, centrist democrats, libertarians, centrist republicans, constitutional conservatives, protectionists, open-border'ists and heck throw in extreme white nationalists, black nationalists and other "race"-nationalists could have a platform of ideas. Just throw them all together from the beginning of the primaries, let everyone speak, and start the primaries earlier. I would bet that more voters would be very interested in the outcome, the extremists would get knocked out first...and we'd probably settle on a sensible sane "middle" person who could compromise.

Everyone is desperate for change, but we're at "change at any cost" with a clear winner and clear loser, and unless we change the thinking and/or the system, we're likely to end up with change which destroys us. Right now, the people who do "think hard" are picking our choices for us and then acting like voters are actually making a choice. (Trump is an exception, and he did prove that the two-party partisan system can be broken.)

We won't solve anything any time soon, but it looks like the next four years is going to be a waste regardless who wins, with 50/50 happy/angry again. It is a good time for problem-solvers to do some real magic tricks.

 

Politics is now looked upon as sports.
Clearly people are fans of say the Eagles because it is their team while others the patriots because it is their team. Rage is directed at the other.

It is becoming increasingly the same in politics. Biden/Trump is better because he is. Duh!

Americans stopped teaching the seven liberal arts a long time ago and never replaced it with anything.

I can’t imagine how to jump start critical thinking again there

 

Nope, you're fine.

Understandable, since in a thread asking about the separation between Progressives and the Left Liberals, and not one word about conservatives, Trump's name came up by post #2...and #3....and #4. LOL

It would be helpful if the original poster comes back and clarifies any intent. For all I know, I'm reading his query incorrectly. However, I read that the post is made by a campus academic who has been told not to speak about what we would consider Classical Liberalism. I can only assume that he is being pressured by a "Progressive" campus administration into either silence, or else, "Lose your job".

This really is "a thing" which is happening today to Liberal professors for one "wrong Tweet" or some other exercise of free speech which gets deemed "heresy" by the Progressives. The Progressives are trying to shut down and silence any Classical Liberal "dissidents".

Another recent example:


https://quillette.com/2020/08/13/the-floridian-inquisition/

 

And here I was about to like your post, until I’ve read this.

 

Then refute it. I don't care if you like it or not. I write to be refuted, not approved of.

 

It will always be the Big Government factions against humanity.

 

Sorry my friend. I do not refute nonsense, others do it. I just make fun of it.

 

All of your comments are valid and interesting. The words I highlighted are at the heart of the current battle between the often tenured Classic Liberal college professors from the Enlightenment Period and the younger Post-Modern, Post-Enlightenment, Neo-Maxist nihilists who they have been observing in the younger generations of students since the 90's, but more abundantly over the past decade.

What is somewhat alarming to me as I have been watching some of these Liberal professors' podcasts and reading articles on what is happening is that the Liberal academic intelligentsia seems to be absolutely terrified about the future of liberalism (with a lower-case "l") due to the mindset and unreasonableness of this segment of the population. "Unreasonable" literally meaning "without reason", and of course, the ability to reason was the very heart of the Enlightenment. There is an authoritarian and totalitarian bent with the Cancel Culture Progressives.

 

No, I don't think adult professors should have to ask permission to post whatever they want on social media. College students have a choice in which classes and professors to take.

I also don't think they should ban speakers on campus. Students can choose to attend or not attend.

Peaceful protests by students should also be allowed outside of lecture halls and auditoriums (not inside), but professors and speakers should not be fired or banned for free speech. College is supposed to be a place where students "dip their toes" into their transition into the real world, where they are not going to have "safe spaces" nor be protected from ideas they don't like.

Saying who does and doesn't get to speak is a bad path and we're now seeing the results. These authoritarian youth have been emboldened to turn into bullies of anyone for any reason.

 

That's a cop out.

Sorry, this is a debate forum, not a place to cop out of an argument because you know you'll lose if you try.

 

No . . . the DNC allowed itself to be ruined by Soros. There is a difference. The first would be a victim whereas the second would be an enthusiastic participant in the process.

 

this is what you said

No one on the right or left supports violence, unless you are Trump

Do you really want me to refute it? All I need is to quote Obama, and I will if you insist!

 

Thank you very much! I agree 100%.

I oppose Totalitarian Left!

I strongly support Welfare System. I oppose guns, drugs, and tobacco. Thus I am not Conservative.

I am also a rare specimen of Libertarian Egalitarian Left.

 

I support Free Speech. I oppose guns. I support Positive Rights -- food, shelter, medical care.

 

According to the Law, Universities are bound by First Amendment. Sadly, First Amendment Rights on Campus are not enforced. I hope President Trump wins -- then he can take away federal funding from Totalitarian universities.

Only G-d knows who will win this year.

 

Your item on "Less corporate ownership of the media" concerns me the most of all of your items. Not that want more corporate ownership but Who or what are you proposing the media is owned by. You better not be desiring to shift it to the government because that would destroy the first amendment especially with a character such as POTUS T sitting on the Oval Throne.

On riots and violence ----- no rioting or violence is good.

You say you are an academic..... hmmmmmm.......ok what is your field of expertise?

Interesting post......hmmmmmm

y analysis of who voted for the Cuvil Rights bill is -- the Northeners. Even the one Republican from the South, Sen. Tower voted against it.one Southern Democrat voted for it. If my memory serves me correctly it was Sen Yarlborough who was promptly thrown into the ditch by the Texas Souhthern Democrats.

Senator Goldwater a classic conservative voted against it . Strom Thurman switched parties to Republican right after the passage of the Civil Rights bills. Strom was a Southener of course.