Edit: And the people scoffing at my comment and hitting the downvote button are only proving my point.
Perhaps "No one" is a little too strong, but I think the general gist of what you're saying may be fair.
I am not familiar with the reasons for property damage in Berkeley. Can you post links? Anything you can provide that would make it easier to evaluate the viewpoints of all involved at Berkeley?
It would not make sense for students to damage their own campus, considering that comes from their tuition. On the note of media sources, where did you hear that rioters were primarily students? Unless you were there, your source of news is also subjected to suspect.
You're the one making extraordinary claims that require extraordinary evidence, not me.
These are pretty much the real-world version of 4-chan trolls. It’s a mistake to associate them with any other group, or to assign them a coherent political ideology.
They’re a constant thorn in the side of left-leaning groups in the East Bay, who pretty much all wish they would go away. They show up uninvited to non-violent events and make a ruckus, helping nobody.
If you won't do minimal research on the opposition, and instead think violence is the answer, then you're already beyond help.
However, my main beef with Milo (and why I would support peaceful protesting about his talks) is his specific and public harassment of specific people. This is the main example https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/trans-student-harasse....
I'm personally very pro free speech(not just from a government censorship standpoint, but as a general principle) and therefore am fine with him saying horrible things about groups of people and still being invited.
I am not fine with personal attacks/harassment.
(And, yes, I realize that his stance regarding pedophilia is most likely a consequence of his own childhood sexual abuse, but even that still doesn't excuse the shitty things he's advocating, or saying about specific people. Attacking a specific person the way he has is necessarily an act of violence, and no matter how prettily you dress it up, or how loudly you hide behind "freedom of speech", violence is never speech.)
No, it's not. Please stop with the weasel-worded equivalencies. I agree that Milo's tirade about the student was ill-advised, but it is not violence.
Also, I find it side-splittingly hilarious how people are going after his Rogan interview comments (calling him pro-NAMBLA is top-notch clickbait, where were you Monday morning when all these stories were going out?!), yet the same people didn't give a shit when Lena Dunham admitted to molesting her sister.
> Violence is defined by the World Health Organization as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation", although the group acknowledges that the inclusion of "the use of power" in its definition expands on the conventional understanding of the word.
I agree with the WHO here, and what Milo did definitely caused psychological harm from a position of power (being a chosen speaker in their school).
As far as I can tell "psychological harm" is too vague and open to interpretation. It's a very broad definition that looks like it prohibits hate speech; I believe in complete free expression by voice or text (criminal/ civil court can handle the rest).
Personally, I stay away from such people in the digital world (but, IRL I'm meaner than most and enjoy 'interacting' with these people).
If you engage in a course of action with an intent to harm another in any way, or behave in a manner likely to result in harm to another, you have committed violence, whatever form that action takes — words, bullets, or anything else.
If you can't accept that basic definition, "then you're already beyond help."
(See how easy it is to poison a discussion with accusations and snide remarks?)
I think this is too imprecise. Would you write code in this manner?
If one can establish a cause and effect of actual harms, then criminal statutes already apply.
This is untrue. What actually happened:
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A partial list of things people did to try to cancel Milo before Wednesday:
~particularly following MY's outing and sexual harassment of a trans student at UW Milwaukee (but also before), we talked with our communities about their thoughts on free speech versus harassment and realized many ppl supported the former but not the latter
~wrote op eds in high-profile news media about the differences between free speech, hate speech, and harassment
~met with many folks targeted by both MY and the Trump administration to hear their concerns and solutions to MY's talk; many asked for us to begin urging for cancellation
the above was all in November, immediately following the election of DT and the dramatic spike in hate crimes against the same groups MY targets
~we developed a large-scale letter writing campaign to faculty and administration urging for the cancellation of MY on the grounds that his speeches have targeted and harassed students and created unsafe campus environments
~worked with members of the community who wanted to draft letters to UCB administration urging for cancellation (particularly trans and poc people)
~once the sale started, we urged friends to buy out all of the tickets so the auditorium would be empty (we later learned that a only fraction of MY tickets were made available for public sale, and that his camp is very familiar with this tactic and just lets more ppl in the day of)
this was all in December
~organized a mass call in campaign to the Chancellor and to President Napolitano urging for cancellation ~visited other schools that invited this speaker and saw how many white nationalists use these talks to build their movement and how violent these spaces can be
~faculty wrote a letter to administration urging for cancellation; they were doxxed on Breitbart for signing on and began receiving personal messages meant to silence and intimidate them
~faculty wrote an op ed about MY's harassment and hate speech; some faculty received death threats for this
~submitted over 50 union grievances stating that the MY talk constitutes a hostile work environment under Article 20 of our contract, which protects against harassment and discrimination
~developed a toolkit that critically examines the history of free speech, pointing to its historical exclusions as well as limits outlined in the constitution, and how MY uses this argument to help build the white nationalist movement and to instruct people how to purge its others; some students who helped write this toolkit were doxxed and began receiving personal messages meant to silence and intimidate
~wrote numerous op eds in our school newspaper, writing for which some students opposed to MY's visit received very chilling death threats
~consulted lawyers on the matter of free speech vs. harassment so we could better understand the legal framework
~after the near-death shooting of a Milo protester at UW Seattle, we reached out to local and state politicians to convince our administration that this talk was a threat to public safety
~held several large public meetings to discuss and debate the merits of allowing this speaker a platform vs. urging for cancellation on the grounds of certain harassment and likely violence; it was at this point that the Berkeley College Republicans began following some of us in attempts to intimidate us
~actually met several times with UCB administrators and read aloud death threats we've received, urging them to protect our right to free speech in the context of threats meant to chill us
~learned that undocumented students would be targeted by MY and that the UCB administration knew this and offered them no protection
this was all in January
This is, again, a partial list that only includes things I remember. I've seen many op eds shame protesters (esp. black bloc) and say, why didn't you do x, y, z first? Believe me, if you can think of a tactic, we tried it. Next time someone shames us for not pursuing the polite route of asking nicely for the psychological and physical safety of us and our friends and loved ones to be honored, start reading this long list of things we actually did before Wednesday. I'm fucking tired and glad that creeper wasn't allowed anywhere near a UCB mic.
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