State of the Discussion

Works fine for the shouty left online fringe. In my opinion a lot of our problems source to a lot of our current class of Democratic pols being past their sell by date and/or being unable-unwilling to state and stand up for their principles and instead just outsourcing them to consultants and the groups. Hopefully should be resolvable by the current stint in the wilderness and primaries assuming that Trump doesn't blow the whole system to heck before the next election.

At minimum I would say there is no reason to believe the political left in this country cares about freedom of speech.

And the political right never has cared, and has, historically, been more effective in stomping on it.

I would like to see Team Blue running on economic growth and good government. "Economic growth" would include "free trade".

Trump is creating massive disruptions in business. Maybe someone can make ads where the auto industry explains why his tariffs destroy auto jobs and they built their businesses around the trade agreements Trump himself forced through last time.

Well, I've already seen one person give a clip of the one guy in response to the question "what did this guy say that was so bad?"

Other languages aren't exactly that creative when naming people either. Mahmoud and other variants of Mohammed are just as common as variants of John are in the West. Family names repeat a lot just like Smith, Baker, and Johnson repeat a lot.

There is a Mahmoud Khalil in Montreal as well, a student at Concordia.

He says some stuff that might be considered risible during the various protests celebrating justice and goodness and all that and I'm pretty sure that the two Mahmoud Khalils are being conflated.

The answer is that it depends on a variety of factors including a lot of lawyers doing their lawyer thing and what immigration judge the get to. The material support for terrorist bar is pretty draconian and a low one for DHS to meet. It also always occurs doing stuff outside the United States not inside the United States.

Where did you think "you can engage in free speech, just not *HATE* speech" would end up?

Expressions of support for Palestine have been huge on campus for decades and have managed to withstand attacks for decades.

What changed in the last few handfuls of years? Anything? Is all of this just coming out of nowhere for you?

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 find it relevant. It pretty much explains the backlash happening right now.

But if you don't see what's happening as a backlash, then these are just unconnected anecdotes, if not an attempt to change the subject through whataboutery.

Folks online are pointing to TITLE 8 / CHAPTER 12 / SUBCHAPTER II / Part II of the immigration law (do a find on the string "terrorist activities") and quoting this part:

Any Alien Who
...
(VII) endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization

The argument is that support for the government in Gaza is support for Hamas.

Hamas has been designated a terrorist group since 1997.

Let me... clarify? With a bunch of premises that strike me as being not only true but uncontroversial.

Over the past few years (decades, maybe?) there has been a fairly raucous argument involving, among other things, "Free Speech" in our culture and it bubbles up especially on campuses. Maybe it bubbles up the most there.

Campuses, and the people who graduate from them, have an outsized influence on the culture.

In recent years, the most vocal have... what's the most non-judgmental way to put this... let's say that they got a little over their skis.

Sometimes in defenses of the indefensible while crying "Free Speech!" (for example, the protests against Gibson's Bakery) and, other times, screaming about "hate speech" or similar terms to call for people to be punished for speech. "Freedom of Speech Doesn't Mean Freedom from Consequences" is one of the ways this manifested... but another was the whole distinction made between punching up and punching down. I'm sure you remember those distinctions as well.

From people on the outside, a lot of these distinctions presented pretty identically to "*I* can do whatever I want while *YOU* have to stay in line."

There were a handful of idealistic types who argued stuff like "we should have a culture that allows a broad space for this sort of thing and we should err on the side of giving a lot of leeway" and that sort of thing got responses of "why are you defending scoundrels?"

And this is where the whole "getting over their skis" thing comes into play.

People who were used to being able to say "Freedom of Speech doesn't mean Freedom from Consequences" are going through a rough time while talking about the importance of a Culture of Free Speech.

While I agree that it is important that we have a Culture of Free Speech, it also seems to me that we're well within experiencing the consequences of *I* can do whatever I want while *YOU* have to stay in line" when the person holding the whip changes.

For what it's worth, I think that it is important that we have a Culture of Free Speech that allows for a lot of leeway when it comes to what people say, even on campus.

I'm pretty sure that the Palestinian Activist made sure that his acts and speech did not provide material support to groups that the federal government has marked as "terrorist".

It's 100% possible to criticize Israel without being anti-Semitic. And, heck, even if the guy skirted the edges of anti-Semitism, that's not illegal either.

And it really sucks that we've reached the point where something like this happens and the response is cheers that something is finally being done than a full-throated defense of the importance of a Culture of Free Speech.

It'd be nice if our universities had an environment that fostered more of an Enlightenment Culture, don't you think?

If they have grounds under the law so be it but from the reporting so far it is not clear that they do. At minimum they need to convict him first, and (again, based on my limited understanding) convict him of something pretty serious.

He was one of the OG Blogfathers way back in the early oughts when he was "Calpundit".

I liked reading him and quoted him a lot. The world is worse off without him.

One of our immigration lawyers would need to step in but I believe involuntary loss of status requires being convicted of a felony. Saying Hamas is the greatest thing since sliced bread or that the Israelis had it coming or whatever isn't a crime.

Okay, my thought is that the Democrats have a bit of a problem right now with the whole "Omnicause" thing. It's probably not their biggest problem but it's adjacent to their biggest problem and so one of the best ways to tackle that is to deny that it exists.

I like what Corey Booker was kinda trying to do but by giving a full script he screwed up.

What you need is to allow each of your politicians' personalities to shine through.

Have Elizabeth Warren give her response to what Trump said and then get all Warren on it. Classic Warren. Have her talk about the "nickeled and dimed" stuff as only she can. When Schumer gives his response, have him talk about Brooklyn and Queens, like it's the early 80s (when he started as just a Congressman). You've got other senators and congressmen from other parts of the country and get them to do it BUT MAKE IT THEIR OWN. Have Fetterman give a Fetterman response that is pure Pittsburgh. Have Marie Gluesenkamp Perez come out and talk about the need to be more West Coastian in our responses to Trump. Bring in Gavin Newsom. Bring it Pritzker.

One of the points to make in the middle of the speech is "we don't all agree on everything but we do agree on THIS:" and then put in something about America Works Hard and We're Working Hard for You! or something like that. Talk about the importance of fairness and justice and whatnot. But have each individual politician make it their own because each one has a charming personality and let each person be charming while talking about what they care about.

We don't all agree on everything... but we agree on (positive message) and we agree that we all have to stand up against the worst things that Trump wants to do.

And the positive message has to be broad. It's a big tent. You don't have to agree with everybody on everything. You just have to agree that America Can Do Better.

One of my new theories and it is mine is that a decent chunk of the left remains politically ineffectual because they want to be tribunes of the oppressed rather than leaders of a majority. You don't need to compromise on your positions if you are a tribune of the oppressed but can remain strident and adamant on every issue. When seeking to lead a majority, you need to compromise quit a bit to get the majority cobbled together.

Really long. He publicly announced his diagnosis in 2014. I wasn't a consistent reader, so after five years or so, when he kept turning up alive, I figured he had beaten it, but I guess that's not really a thing with multiple myeloma.

It's a shame. I had my political differences with him, but he was smart, and interesting, and I preferred a world and a blogosphere with him to one without him.