Pew poll on global support for free expression

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I've recently changed my views on censorship but I'm baffled by the suggestion that I ought to spend my time defending the free speech rights of racist cretins. As a reasonable person, I don't care about their rights, nor do I need to care about their rights.  

For the record, calls for "censorship" at various institutions are not infringements upon anyone's liberties.  In this country, there's a pesky "freedom of association" that allows private organizations to expel speakers or members, as is their wont. It's not censorship if a university refuses to allow a speaker to give a commencement speech; that's well within the confines of the law and it's sensible because it reflects commitments to those who are associated with universities as students or faculty. So no, there's no systematic assault on free speech or whatever, there's isolated incidents of student groups overstepping their boundaries and a widespread movement towards making universities more selective in terms of their on-campus speakers, which is fair and reflects cultural trends away from lax expressions of racism or sexism, whether through humor or pseudo-intellectual production. This is not oppression, stop acting like a bunch of coddled babies!

Stop conflating censorship with being censured. The latter is a hallmark of liberal ideas about "civil society"; students who march against the "politically incorrect" are giving various officials their censure, they're not seeking to use official institutions to systematically ban speech rights, they're using their speech to create a PR problem; a strategy that's perfectly commensurate with the freedom of expression. Whether or not this is praiseworthy or worthwhile is another question but it's clearly not fascism or authoritarian or illiberal or whatever, there's liberality in terms of one's tastes and there's political liberalism. The latter has no issue with wielding speech in order to censure others!