Having spent still more than half of my adult life around universities, I just don't think things are bad there. Granted, I'm not in any way culturally conservative (except that I think 80s post-punk is better than 2000s post-punk, and you can't convince me otherwise), so it may just be a general philosophical difference.
Sure, that has no chilling effect on free speech at universities.
What's funny is part of Columbia's pitch to perspective students is their pride in their 1960s protest movement, which was much more disruptive than the 2024 version ever was. I'm sure in 20 years they'll be selling their history of student activism with the 2024 protests as well.
2025-03-14 13:09:52
Well the results of this investigation are horrifying, but expected :
The vast majority of the funding that Columbia gets is allocated for research, much of it vital, and much of it now cancelled. I'm all for destroying the Ivy League, but it is important that funding still go to do this vital research. And it's not going to do that.
And it's not like Columbia students are suffering after graduation, so the university must be doing something right with the money it spends on educating students.
Yup, they capitulated (those measures had all been previously recommended), punished their students for free speech, and this is still what they get.
2025-03-13 21:41:22
But this is nothing compared to when, in 2019, some cadets were investigated and ultimately suffered no consequences. And besides, someone on another campus at another university in another time zone did something, so they were really asking for this.
I used to fly SW almost exclusively, but it's been a while since they were the cheapest, even among the major (non-discount) carriers, despite being less pleasant to fly than most others (except United; fish United). The checked bag thing was seriously the only reason to pick them much of the time. I'm flying with them next week, and wonder if I'll fly with them again for personal travel after that (the institute that flies me around for work stuff always picks them, the cheapskate).
So I still see no evidence that Khalil supported 10/7, but let's say he did -- I don't know anyone who supports the killing of civilians, but I do know people personally who won't criticize Hamas for 10/7, so it's probably not outside of the realm of possibility that he falls into that category -- is that grounds for deportation?
Would supporting armed resistance in Palestine generally be grounds for deportation?
Hey man, as someone who's repeatedly criticized our relationship with the Saudis, including providing them the weapons that they used to support mass slaughter in Yemen, you're preaching to the choir.
And also in Syria, a situation that we were less directly involved in, but which our actions directly led to by destabilizing the region. I
I don't know if Syria counts as genocide, and not just mass government killings, but I don't think that makes it any better. I think there is some debate in the literature, however.
Yemen has a real case for being genocide, and there have been multiple calls for Americans generally, and genocide scholars specifically, to take a close look at it.
I have no doubt that CUAD has members who openly supported armed resistance in Palestine. Pretty much every group does. I do not see any evidence that most, or even more than a few, of the protestors supported 10/7.
Oh wow. I remember when he announced his cancer, and that it was terminal, saying he was going to stop blogging, but then seeing him like a year later and thinking, "Wow, hope that means he beat it." Then I saw his stuff occasionally for the next decade, and I forgot about the cancer. RIP.
Did he protest in support of 10/7, or just in opposition to the then ongoing genocide? Do you have evidence he specifically supported the former? The Columbia protests were explicitly about the genocide, not 10/7.
Man, attacks on the free speech of those who support Palestine or criticize Israel have been happening for decades, in the media and universities. The only thing new here is that it's the government doing it. So yeah, I think you're miles off, but more than that, I think you've just chosen to make it about what you care about instead of the actual issue of the friggin' government detaining someone for political speech.
I've thought a lot about this comment (went for a run soon after, so I had time). I realize what I said was harsh, and while I stand by every part of it, I want to add some context.
For those of you who haven't been around for 15 years, between 2009 and 2016, I commented on this site pretty much daily, so Jaybird and I have known each other for a very long time in internet time. We've had many conversations on and off of this site, and while I disagree strongly with this politics, that's true of literally every single person on this site and always has been (there were some strong new deal/social democrats, and of course Freddie, once upon a time), so it doesn't for the most part affect my respect for him, or my ability to recognize that he's a very smart person who often has interesting things to say. Which is part of why I find this sort of Scheiße so fottutamente disappointing.
The people crying wolf 20 years ago weren't just liberals and the left. There were tons of libertarians who, if they voted for one of the two parties, almost certainly voted for Republicans. In fact, in the wake of the Patriot Act, increased domestic surveillance, and the invasion of Iraq, a bunch of libertarians spent half a decade trying to convince themselves and their fellow travelers that they should abandon the libertarian-conservative alliance and build an at least tenuous libertarian-liberal alliance. In some ways, I think it was the aftermath of 9/11, and the split it caused among libertarians, between those who remained with the right and those who looked to the political center or alliances, that ultimately resulted in the end of libertarianism as an American political faction, and perhaps even as a political ideology altogether.
It must get exhausting trying to make these comparisons, instead of just saying, "You know what, this is bad!" Especially when it involves comparing kids who ultimately were not punished by their college to a permanent resident who was detained, shipped who knows where (no seriously, his family didn't know where), and who may be deported, for political speech. Did people overreact to those kids? Absolutely. Is it related to political persecution by the government? Dude, you are gonna need to write a coherent (I mean, by ordinary standards, not your own) essay with many thousands of words to make that argument, and I am 99.9999% certain you're gonna fail.
I don't even know, man. You thoroughly dominate this site's comment section; pretty much all of it is a dialogue with you. This would be a better place to hang out, in an internet world in chaos right now, if you'd cut this bullsh*t out.
I've already seen people whom I personally witnessed warn of the risk of the security state built up during the Bush administration under the guise of the "War on Terror" being used for political persecution domestically go out of their way to justify this detention because they disagree with his politics, so yeah, I'm not confident we'll heed the warning.
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Having spent still more than half of my adult life around universities, I just don't think things are bad there. Granted, I'm not in any way culturally conservative (except that I think 80s post-punk is better than 2000s post-punk, and you can't convince me otherwise), so it may just be a general philosophical difference.
Sure, that has no chilling effect on free speech at universities.
What's funny is part of Columbia's pitch to perspective students is their pride in their 1960s protest movement, which was much more disruptive than the 2024 version ever was. I'm sure in 20 years they'll be selling their history of student activism with the 2024 protests as well.
Well the results of this investigation are horrifying, but expected :
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/report-of-the-commission-of-inquiry-israel-gender-based-violence-13march2025/
The vast majority of the funding that Columbia gets is allocated for research, much of it vital, and much of it now cancelled. I'm all for destroying the Ivy League, but it is important that funding still go to do this vital research. And it's not going to do that.
And it's not like Columbia students are suffering after graduation, so the university must be doing something right with the money it spends on educating students.
Yes.
They were in the process of doing this last year. They'd already done some of it. It just took this long, procedurally.
I can think of few better indications that someone is wrong than Yggles thinking they're right.
Yup, they capitulated (those measures had all been previously recommended), punished their students for free speech, and this is still what they get.
But this is nothing compared to when, in 2019, some cadets were investigated and ultimately suffered no consequences. And besides, someone on another campus at another university in another time zone did something, so they were really asking for this.
https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1900365049597722800?t=LEX8wlmLd4uyqjhFa_pjtg&s=19
I used to fly SW almost exclusively, but it's been a while since they were the cheapest, even among the major (non-discount) carriers, despite being less pleasant to fly than most others (except United; fish United). The checked bag thing was seriously the only reason to pick them much of the time. I'm flying with them next week, and wonder if I'll fly with them again for personal travel after that (the institute that flies me around for work stuff always picks them, the cheapskate).
So I still see no evidence that Khalil supported 10/7, but let's say he did -- I don't know anyone who supports the killing of civilians, but I do know people personally who won't criticize Hamas for 10/7, so it's probably not outside of the realm of possibility that he falls into that category -- is that grounds for deportation?
Would supporting armed resistance in Palestine generally be grounds for deportation?
Hey man, as someone who's repeatedly criticized our relationship with the Saudis, including providing them the weapons that they used to support mass slaughter in Yemen, you're preaching to the choir.
And also in Syria, a situation that we were less directly involved in, but which our actions directly led to by destabilizing the region. I
I don't know if Syria counts as genocide, and not just mass government killings, but I don't think that makes it any better. I think there is some debate in the literature, however.
Yemen has a real case for being genocide, and there have been multiple calls for Americans generally, and genocide scholars specifically, to take a close look at it.
I have no doubt that CUAD has members who openly supported armed resistance in Palestine. Pretty much every group does. I do not see any evidence that most, or even more than a few, of the protestors supported 10/7.
I'm confused. Khalil is not in any of those posts, and they're all about Bangladesh.
Oh wow. I remember when he announced his cancer, and that it was terminal, saying he was going to stop blogging, but then seeing him like a year later and thinking, "Wow, hope that means he beat it." Then I saw his stuff occasionally for the next decade, and I forgot about the cancer. RIP.
They're definitely being conflated on Twitter by people celebrating his detention.
I'm way past the point of addressing genocide denialism at all.
Re: the protests, where in the Wikipedia page does it say they supported 10/7?
Did he protest in support of 10/7, or just in opposition to the then ongoing genocide? Do you have evidence he specifically supported the former? The Columbia protests were explicitly about the genocide, not 10/7.
Man, attacks on the free speech of those who support Palestine or criticize Israel have been happening for decades, in the media and universities. The only thing new here is that it's the government doing it. So yeah, I think you're miles off, but more than that, I think you've just chosen to make it about what you care about instead of the actual issue of the friggin' government detaining someone for political speech.
I've thought a lot about this comment (went for a run soon after, so I had time). I realize what I said was harsh, and while I stand by every part of it, I want to add some context.
For those of you who haven't been around for 15 years, between 2009 and 2016, I commented on this site pretty much daily, so Jaybird and I have known each other for a very long time in internet time. We've had many conversations on and off of this site, and while I disagree strongly with this politics, that's true of literally every single person on this site and always has been (there were some strong new deal/social democrats, and of course Freddie, once upon a time), so it doesn't for the most part affect my respect for him, or my ability to recognize that he's a very smart person who often has interesting things to say. Which is part of why I find this sort of Scheiße so fottutamente disappointing.
The people crying wolf 20 years ago weren't just liberals and the left. There were tons of libertarians who, if they voted for one of the two parties, almost certainly voted for Republicans. In fact, in the wake of the Patriot Act, increased domestic surveillance, and the invasion of Iraq, a bunch of libertarians spent half a decade trying to convince themselves and their fellow travelers that they should abandon the libertarian-conservative alliance and build an at least tenuous libertarian-liberal alliance. In some ways, I think it was the aftermath of 9/11, and the split it caused among libertarians, between those who remained with the right and those who looked to the political center or alliances, that ultimately resulted in the end of libertarianism as an American political faction, and perhaps even as a political ideology altogether.
It must get exhausting trying to make these comparisons, instead of just saying, "You know what, this is bad!" Especially when it involves comparing kids who ultimately were not punished by their college to a permanent resident who was detained, shipped who knows where (no seriously, his family didn't know where), and who may be deported, for political speech. Did people overreact to those kids? Absolutely. Is it related to political persecution by the government? Dude, you are gonna need to write a coherent (I mean, by ordinary standards, not your own) essay with many thousands of words to make that argument, and I am 99.9999% certain you're gonna fail.
I don't even know, man. You thoroughly dominate this site's comment section; pretty much all of it is a dialogue with you. This would be a better place to hang out, in an internet world in chaos right now, if you'd cut this bullsh*t out.
I've already seen people whom I personally witnessed warn of the risk of the security state built up during the Bush administration under the guise of the "War on Terror" being used for political persecution domestically go out of their way to justify this detention because they disagree with his politics, so yeah, I'm not confident we'll heed the warning.