wait so you're ok with milo saying dickish things?
but it's wrong for others to say via protest that he is a dick?? so he shouldn't be listened to???
you're ok with milo saying things that incite or support violence, be it statutory rape or even naming specific individuals to put them at risk, but think it's wrong to support peaceful protestors?
i'm so...confused, i guess.
like, where does this view even leave you?
bc you seem to think that the free market of ideas will sort things out, good from bad, making dickish/pro-nazi/racist things ok to say. but you also think it's wrong to use any mechanism to sort the wheat from the chaff. like i can kind of understand the folks who believe in the free market and support peaceful protesters bc you can point to historic examples where peaceful protest was highly effective at idea/politic sorting, be it around the persons of mlk or ghandi. but idk where this would work if you can't even protest. like if it didn't even work for socrates, i feel like the method might be flawed,
what methods would you support for sorting the wheat from the chaff?
Yes I am ok with Milo or anyone else saying dickish things.
Most of the protests even the peaceful ones are not just saying he is a dick they are saying he should not be speaking at these speaking invitations so they are calls to silence him. I disagree with this.
I'm not ok with Milo saying things that incite and support violence if with that you mean him saying go attack this person and not just I don't like Milo and so when he is criticizing people this is automatically incitement or support of violence because some of his fans may harass the person he criticizes. I have also still yet to see proof of the claims multiple people have made that he has incited violence.
I don't think silencing someone is sorting wheat from the chaff, it just forces the discussion "underground" where it is less likely to receive reasoned disagreement. Addressing their concerns and where reasonable working with people you disagree with and elsewhere instead advocate for why you disagree with them. I would say a response I would be more supportive of is arguing that a college hosting an invited speaker you disagree with that they either agree with opening up the speaking engagement to be a debate instead if the speaker and group that invited them will agree to this and bring forth a speaker you feel is capable of countering the first one well or if this can no be agreed upon for the college to allow an opposing speaker to come and speak either before or after.
The other historic protests you talk about are also slightly different, neither MLK nor Ghandi wanted other people to be prevented from speaking. They were fighting for rights, freedoms and against oppression. To even connect the two is an insult to their hard work and goals.
I'd say that the Milo situation was quite effective at showing how it worked. Milo gets protested and people try to silence him and getting institutions to disinvite him and he becomes more famous than he ever would have been, gets more speaking engagements, prominence among politicians and book deals. The thing that managed to undo much of that was the drunken peasants giving him a platform to speak freely. I would say if there had been no attempts to silence him in the first place he would not have gained the prominence he had and if he would not have been allowed to speak freely by others he wouldn't have lost it.
