E-Pluribus | March 7, 2024

Aiming at "hate speech" and hitting freedom; whatever DEI is creating, it's not diversity; and a forecast on political violence.

A round-up of the latest and best musings on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:

Rupa Subramanya: New Hate Speech Laws Threaten Freedom Across the West

Just based on the terminology, those who advocate ‘hate speech’ laws suggest no reasonable person could object to squelching it: who likes “hate”? But, like many things, “hate” is in eye of the beholder (or ear of the hearer.) Rupa Subramanya writes at The Free Press that even freedom-loving countries around the world are falling for the false promises of hate speech legislation and undermining liberty as a result.

. . .In English-speaking countries with long traditions of free expression—countries like Canada, Britain, and Ireland—this most basic freedom is under attack.

Take Canada. Civil liberties groups north of the border are warning a new bill put forward by Justin Trudeau’s government will introduce “draconian penalties” that risk chilling free speech. How draconian? The law would allow authorities to place a Canadian citizen under house arrest if that person is suspected to commit a future hate crime—even if they have not already done so. The legislation also increases the maximum penalty for advocating genocide from five years to life.

[. . .]

In Ireland, the government is pressing ahead with controversial new restrictions of online speech that, if passed, would be among the most stringent in the Western world.

The proposed legislation would criminalize the act of “inciting hatred” against individuals or groups based on specified “protected characteristics” like race, nationality, religion, and sexual orientation. The definition of incitement is so broad as to include “recklessly encouraging” other people to hate or cause harm “because of your views” or opinions. In other words, intent doesn’t matter. Nor would it matter if you actually posted the “reckless” content. Merely being in possession of that content—say, in a text message, or in a meme stored on your iPhone—could land you a fine of as much as €5,000 ($5,422) or up to 12 months in prison, or both.

[. . .]

In Britain, existing online harm legislation means that tweeting “transwomen are men” can lead to a knock on the door from the cops. Now the governing Conservative Party is under pressure to adopt a broad definition of Islamophobia as a “type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.”

[. . .]

These growing restrictions on speech across the Anglosphere are making the United States, with its robust First Amendment protection of speech, an outlier—though not for the Biden administration’s lack of trying.

In April 2022, the Department of Homeland Security announced the creation of a “Disinformation Governance Board” to “coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security.” There was an immediate pushback from free-speech advocates, who pointed to the obvious fact that this new body would necessarily impinge on protected First Amendment rights. The administration dropped the idea a few months later.

[. . .]

Across the English-speaking world, we once took our civil liberties for granted. Freedom of speech was understood as a blessing of democracy, not something that needed to be fought for every day. We thought that opaque and vague laws were used by those in power to punish their political or ideological opponents only in illiberal autocracies such as Russia or China. But we were wrong. And those now fighting censorship in Canada, or Britain, or Ireland, wish they had a First Amendment of their own to fall back on.

Read the whole thing.

Pamela Paul: Civil Discourse on Campus Is Put to the Test

During the 1992 riots in LA following the acquittals of police officers who beat Rodney King, King pleaded with the public, “I just want to say – you know – can we, can we all get along? Can we, can we get along?” All of history has shown, before and since, that the unfortunate answer is, “no, we can’t.” But what we can do is try to establish forums and principles for non-violent exchange of sometimes very different ideas and beliefs. At the New York Times, Pamela Paul looks at efforts at some of the nation’s universities to allow this kind of discourse, and how DEI tends to simply exacerbate the problems.

Because I’d written about the difficulties students have had engaging in civil discourse, including a couple of columns on incidents at Stanford, I was one of two journalists invited to take part [in a discussion at “Stanford to discuss restoring inclusive civil discourse on campus”]. Hosted by Stanford Law School and the Stanford Graduate School of Education, the conference brought together professors, deans and academic leaders who were largely liberal, with libertarians and a few conservatives and progressives in the mix.

[. . .]

Brian Soucek, a professor at the U.C. Davis School of Law and an advocate of D.E.I. statements, started the panel off by making his case. Mere statements of belief in D.E.I. are not enough, he said. In an effort to reach consensus on what a D.E.I. hiring statement should look like, in lieu of U.C. Davis’s current required statement, he proposed an abbreviated version that asked candidates specifically about D.E.I. shortcomings and gaps in their fields of discipline and concrete steps they’ve taken or plan to take to address them.

The rest of the panel wasn’t having it.

Amna Khalid, a historian at Carleton College, endorsed the goal of diversifying staffs. The problem isn’t principle or legality, she said, it’s practice. Diversity according to whom? And in what context?

“It’s always ‘historically excluded and underrepresented,’” she said. “But historically when? Conservatives could argue they have been historically excluded. What’s underrepresented at Hillsdale College will be different from what’s underrepresented in the U.C. system.”

“We all know that there’s a strong political orientation bias being perpetuated,” she continued. “‘Not a good fit,’ they’ll say. It’s fundamentally dishonest and it creates more problems than it addresses.”

“People in the most elite systems know how to game the system,” Jeff Snyder, a professor of educational studies at Carleton, added. “It’s a privileged box-ticking exercise that ultimately degrades the purpose.” Together, he and Khalid filed an amicus brief for the plaintiffs against Florida’s Stop WOKE Act.

Imagine flipping the litmus test on its head, Snyder said. Suppose the requirement was a statement of patriotism at the University of Florida. Suppose they say, just as D.E.I. advocates will say, that the definition of patriotism is expansive. And suppose he writes that his vision of patriotism is political protest in the model of Colin Kaepernick. He wouldn’t get the job. Nor would he get a job if he wrote a D.E.I. statement for Carleton saying he mentored members of the campus N.R.A. group or the Young Republicans Club, both of which are underrepresented minorities on campus. D.E.I. statements are inherently ideological. A chilling effect is inevitable.

Read it all.

Michael J. Ard: Are We Headed for More Political Violence This Election Year?

America’s long streak of peaceful political transfer of power came to an abrupt end on January 6, 2021. While there were no tanks in the streets or summary executions, the violence on that day was enough to raise concerns of a repeat, or even worse things to come. At Discourse Magazine, Michael Ard looks at some of the attitudes and trends regarding political violence and what 2024 might hold.

Will the 2024 election inspire more political violence? Since the 2020 riots protesting police brutality—which included intrusions at the White House complex—and the 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol by Donald Trump supporters, concern that we might experience renewed political violence seems apt. Some of the news is not encouraging. Last year, attacks by right-wing extremists left 17 people dead. Random attacks, such as one directed toward former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul, have highlighted the vulnerability of public officials and their families. U.S. Capitol Police report a significant increase in threats to members of Congress—some 8,000 in 2023—and they anticipate even more threats this year.

[. . .]

Political violence in the U.S. usually has occurred during periods of national stress—particularly during the early efforts to expand voting rights. University of Texas professor Jeremi Suri argues that this effective violence to intimidate Black voters was countered once the federal government started prosecuting offenders during the Grant administration (1869-1877) and again during the civil rights era (1954-1968).

But before 2020-2021, perhaps the most notorious outburst of political violence was the 1968 effort by the radical Students for a Democratic Society to disrupt the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. As historian Luke A. Nichter relates in “The Year That Broke Politics,” Students for a Democratic Society leaders planned the rioting over the course of months. Targeted political violence on a large scale normally requires organizational planning. While left-wing extremist groups were active in the 1960s and 1970s, their modern counterparts rarely commit acts of lethal violence, according to the nonpartisan Counterextremism Project. Still, the Antifa rioting at the Trump inauguration in 2017 helped jumpstart more recent political violence and provoked a reaction from far-right groups.

[. . .]

Self-radicalized individuals are contributing to the overall perception of incipient political violence—and the threats span the political divide. According to CNN, threats against political figures skyrocketed between Obama’s second term and Trump’s presidency, and they have remained high under Biden. Trump and Obama themselves received about the same amount of threats against them. Lately, members of both parties have been targeted almost equally.

Self-radicalized individuals also target election workers. A series of reports in Reuters in 2021 detailed threats by some Trump supporters against election officials. Arrests for threatening election workers have been rare due to First Amendment protections. But CNN has detailed cases of threats against some senior Republican election officials whose states verified the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden. According to a 2022 poll commissioned by the Brennan Center for Justice, one in six local election officials have experienced threats because of their role in elections; 77% say the threat appears to be increasing. Most blame social media for spreading the false electoral information that has made them the target of ire.

[. . .]

[S]some evidence also suggests that more Americans are repelled by the violence of 2020 and 2021. Over time, many abandoned the idea that force was justified to restore Trump to the White House. According to a 2022 poll conducted by University of Chicago researchers, the number of Americans believing that declined sharply to 5%, with 83% believing that force was unjustified. This development demonstrated that people do indeed change their minds and, as political scientist Robert Pape put it, “that facts still matter.”

In light of these developments, how likely will political violence be this year? It is difficult to be certain, but several indicators suggest we are in a much better situation than we were in 2020-2021. Far from being fragile, the evidence suggests our democratic society has built-in resiliency. Although we were caught off guard in 2020, it seems unlikely the response would be as confused and ineffective a second time around.

In the short term, we can do little about underlying causes such as self-radicalization and mental health crises. However, more assertive law enforcement, stronger public messaging about election security and more restrained political speech probably will keep most political violence in check.

Read it all here.

Around Twitter (X)

After New York governor Hochul ordered the National Guard to patrol New York City subways in the wake of several violent attacks, Senator Tom Cotton took a not-so-subtle swing at the New York Times for appending an editor’s note to his June 2020 op-ed titled Send In The Troops.

Here, Tyler Harper takes issue with Michael Harriot on why there is opposition to DEI:

And finally, John Kerry with an amazing take on Russia and climate change. (click for video)