Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Constitutional Issues Freedom of speech

Listening to Fresh Air tonight and there’s a lengthy discussion of new and proposed restrictions on speech, primarily by school teachers and college professors who, in some cases, can be sued for large amounts of money by those who don’t want to, say, speak to a school administrator.

These restrictions are already in place in some states. They cver discrimination on the basis of race or gender (and in some states, prohibit the acknowledgement of gender fluidity at all.) There are additional prohibitions against discussing what used to be called “unAmerican” social/political philosophy as anything other than antiAmerican.

This is a long interview but it can be listened to in sections. I strongly suggest you listen to it.. If you care at all about education, this will give you chills.

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/03/1077878538/legislation-restricts-what-teachers-can-discuss

I love new and interesting words…

Fixed. Apparently spellcheck likes them too.

Speaking of “spell pecker” I had to shut that off on my phone. I would write either emails or texts that might’ve had some odd words or certain deliberate misspellings.. but they were deliberate. As soon as the message was sent “spell pecker” would
“correct” them and deliver something I did not intend.

Has anyone else had that sort of experience?

Yup.

I have never seen the aurora borealis. It really was not a big thing in Hawaii when I was growing up. But I was informed by my Saskatchewan cousin that it would be appearing there last night.

I suppose it was last night.

Just like surfing…..you’re too late..,.you missed it!!! Have any of you people ever seen the northern lights?

Used to see it a couple of times a year in North Idaho. Always amazing!

Woke up in the middle of the night and thought it was a good time to give it a listen… it wasn’t. I fell asleep half a dozen times just as she was getting to the point.

I’ll try again this morning.

There has been a thought bugging me for some time about lying being protected 'free speech'. It seems clear that it should not be, but how to police such a thing? The only time it seems to be enforced against is in courts of law - perjury, defamation lawsuits, etc., and there is usually plenty of wiggle room there.

In one of the Avlon videos above, a phrase stuck with me, "Asymmetric polarization." It was brought up specifically in reference to the fact that rightwingers do it more, and better, than the left. This notion is usually nullified by the claim that both sides do it, which is true to an extent, but the degree is hugely asymmetric. Take King Kon as exhibit #1 - he lied over 30,000 times in 4 years. The counter is that Obama once said, "If you like your health plan, you can keep it." Politifact even touted it as the Lie of the Year. Like I said.... asymmetry.

As you all know, I have long used ConROT - Conservative Rool of the Opposite Thang - to note when a rightwinger twists the meaning of something inside out. Propaganda Barbie immortalized this with her Alternative Facts debut. Talk about ConROT!

Now this thing of the supposedly not 'really censorship' in the podcast, I see a ploy to protect propaganda (baked into he heads of the children of rightwingnuts) in schools by banning contextual discussion of various heinous human behaviors, and the associated pragmatic evaluation of right vs wrong. In other words, the backers of these new laws don't want their children to learn to think for themselves from a basis of moral, ethical, or even legal knowledge and understanding - they have a heritage to protect, after all.

This is an asymmetric campaign of the protection of brainwashing, disguised as anti-propaganda. It's hard to fight such tactics if you aren't comfortable with using them, which leaves the lefties in a dilemma. If both sides did fight the same way, using massive lying and propaganda, it would be a nosedive into anarchy and chaos.

When it comes to asymmetrical propaganda, nobody does it better than the Righties!

I just bought a book called “It Can Happen Here: Why America is Tioping from Hate to the Unthinkable - and How We can Stop.” This one is by Jonathan Greeblatt, head of the ADL. I heard about this one on NPR as well, I think; if I find the reference I’ll add the link here.