A new report from the Cato Institute that surveys attitudes regarding free speech issues at colleges.
https://www.cato.org/survey-reports/state-free-speech-tolerance-america
Wow. I really hate the direction our country is going. People clearly have no idea what it’s like to live someplace where freedom of speech and thought are heavily regulated. I seriously hope I die of old age before we start regulating speech and thought to the point where those percentages creep up.
Going, or has been throughout history, with respect to freedom of speech and the like? You can look up the Sedition Act of 1798 for an example (never tested in the Supreme Court, though probably would be considered unconstitutional today).
Surveys from various organizations indicate that a very large percentage of the population tends to support freedom of speech situationally and selectively, meaning more when someone with some ideological affinity is speaking than when someone is speaking an opposing ideology.
Posting free speech scares from conservative orgs is basically your favorite thing, isn’t it?
Weird cherry picking of stats you did there, @Zinhead.
Love this -
What does that sentence even mean? Done more than what?
Is this somehow objectionable to you? I’d think you’d applaud it.
Lest we think it’s only those silly college educated people who think speech should be suppressed…
LOL. And how many NFL fans think it is OK to fire players who kneel during the anthem?
Glad to see it’s less than half but that is a little too close for comfort. Talk about stomping on the first amendment.
Oh I just hadn’t read far enough to see the large majority of those who favor limiting the free speech of football players 
So 4 out of 10 believe this speech should be banned. Nice.
Wow. @momofthreeboys I’m scared of the direction our country is going too.
Didn’t we, as a country, go to war in Europe to KILL Nazis? Have Nazis changed a lot since then? Is there some reason Americans are expected to feel differently about them now?
Nazi ideology killed half of my family.
Yeah, I’m 100% OK with punching Nazis. When your ideology is based on wiping other groups from the face of the earth because of the color of their skin, you deserve to be punched in the face.
Zinhead, you’re jumping the shark…
So much for defending that pesky Constitution.
Re #9
What do they do with old worn out flags no longer fit for further use?
Watch out! HUAC is watching…
Ah but that’s different, UCB. It’s all about WHO is doing it.
See, for example, Kid Rock wearing the flag like a shirt. Tearing a hole in it, making it dirty, and wearing it are all perfectly fine.
As with most things, the flag code (both official and unofficial is only important when someone you don’t like is violating it.
“Posting free speech scares from conservative orgs is basically your favorite thing, isn’t it?” ~ romanigypsyeyes
You’re misinformed if you honestly believe the Cato Institute is a conservative organization. In reality, it’s a staunchly libertarian think-tank that is quite liberal on numerous social/cultural issues, and is frequently quite critical of conservatives.
My family members were killed because of nazi ideology and I am 100% NOT OK with punching nazis. You don’t get to punch someone based on their beliefs. (Same way you don’t get to kill millions of people based on their beliefs.). We don’t get to decide which beliefs are worthy of punishment, only actions.
Unfortunately there are those across the political spectrum who don’t believe in robust free speech. It was silly of the left to assume that they could act without consequence, and now in many unfortunate ways we are seeing non progressives adopt similar attitudes and philosophies. I believe some people are in the process of finding out that the majority of the country is, on social policy at least, in a far different place than coastal California and the mid Atlantic.
To the very few of you who do not seem to understand this basic point, there is an obvious distinction between using violent means to stop speech with which you disagree and advocating for consequences for those who do things you may object to. In other words, believing a private employer should fire an employee who takes an action viewed by a large number of customers as disrespectful/divisive is in no rational way the same thing as shutting down speakers who are to the right of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, or trying to stop the teaching of Plato and Descartes because they happened to be white and male.
And can we just stop with the “punching nazis” thing? You all do a disservice to the men and women who fought the bloodiest war in history against a regime that virtually wiped out an entire race in Europe, and killed millions of people in service to a corrupt and disgraceful ideology when you equate wearing a MAGA hat with being a Nazi. And to do this solely to defend a bunch of fascist punk bullies who you believe can be reliably counted on to support your preferred Presidential candidate makes me want to puke. It is a disgusting and it should stop.
But @Ohiodad51 the question wasn’t about punching people in MAGA hats, or people like Richard Spencer. It was about punching Nazis. Presumably that meant what it said - actual Nazis.
Or Cato is messing with us all.
^Except that “punching Nazis” has been a byword of the left to excuse the idiots in antifa/black bloc for some time. That is indeed the only way the statement can be understood, since life is not an Indiana Jones movie, and presumably people who took the survey are aware of this. Don’t be disingenuous.
And speaking of cherry picking, I do want to commend your skills in that regard. It takes a lot to make the Cato data look like Republicans are against free speech.
Hey I didn’t start the thread with the original cherry picks, I’m just here for sorely needed balance.
And if you know Cato asked about “Nazi admirers” or “people who remind us of Nazis” or “people who wear swastikas and drive their cars into counter protesters” please share with us @Ohiodad51
LOL. Fair enough. The actual data taken as a whole is unsurprising though, unfortunately. The farther left you move on the political spectrum the more you are in favor of banning things/using violence to do so. Again, not perhaps a surprising finding given the state of progressive political “juice” at this moment in time, but a very volatile situation, especially when coupled with the far right beginning to adopt some of the same tactics and attitudes. I have no real idea whether the far right is larger/smaller than the far left, but like we saw when right wing groups showed up in Berkeley to defend somebody’s (I forgot whose) speech, when there are close to equal numbers/equivalent weaponry of antifa and the alt right, things do not go well with antifa. Just like at Altamont, when it is hippies v bikers, give the odds and bet on the bikers.
The problem is defining “Nazi admirers” or “people who remind us of Nazis”. To use your Charlottsville example (since that of course is the only permissible example of political violence in the last few months). There are those who believe that anyone who voted for Trump/doesn’t actively hate him is totally the same thing as the whack job in NC. You know, the whole “basket of deplorables” thing. To others, opposing the removal of a statute of Robert E Lee is not ipso facto racist. So you get what you get. The far left gets to feel morally superior and act out their rage at not having any levers of political power at the same time by making everything binary. Hence “punch a nazi”. It is a joke.